Injury is looming for Australian skipper Pat Cummins ahead of next month's Champions Trophy, with the pacer set to undergo a scan on his “sore ankle” and chairman of selectors George Bailey refusing to confirm his availability for the big event. Cummins has been troubled by the ankle problem throughout the Australian summer, but recently managed to guide his team to a 3-1 win over India in the big Border-Gavaskar Test series. Bailey did not state whether Cummins was a certainty for the Champions Trophy, which starts on February 19.
“It's not completely certain yet, we'll have to wait and see where the scan comes back and where it's monitored,” he told 'nine.com.au'.
Australia announced its squad for the two-Test away matches against Sri Lanka, with several stalwarts including Cummins missing from the list. The team, which consists largely of new faces, will be led by top hitter Steve Smith.
“Pat is obviously going to be on paternity leave for the foreseeable future,” Bailey said in a statement Thursday.
“There's still some work to be done, he's got a bit of a sore ankle too, so I think there'll be a scan in the next week and we'll get some more information on what that's causing,” he added.
However, Bailey expressed confidence that pacer Josh Hazlewood, who was ruled out of the pink-ball Test in Adelaide due to a left-side injury and also missed the last two matches with a calf strain, would be fit for the Champions Trophy.
“He is working very hard and all the news about how he is responding to the calf injury is coming in very well.
On Hazlewood not featuring in the squad for Sri Lanka, Bailey said: “It was probably a bit of a tight squeeze (for this squad) given the amount of time he would have missed and again looking at how we could potentially structure those loads.” those quick things can be put under.
“The bottom line was that unfortunately he didn't get there in time (for the Sri Lanka Tests), but he was confident he would be fit and ready to go for the Champions Trophy,” Bailey added .
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