The sea is angry today and so is Pat Cummins. A back injury ruled him out of four of five Ashes Tests this summer and it has now kiboshed his T20 World Cup hopes. “It’s annoying,” he says, sitting by Bronte beach, just a cover drive from his home. “I was very keen to play, and when we mapped out a plan for the Ashes and beyond, these T20s were a big part of it. But the scan shows a bit going on, and it needs four more weeks to settle down.”
It puts the Test captain on ice and means Australia enter the World Cup this week three pace titans down. Mitchell Starc has retired from T20s and Josh Hazlewood is battling a hamstring injury. That’s 182 games of experience missing. Instead, rookie quicks Xavier Bartlett, Ben Dwarsius and Nathan Ellis (64 games collectively) will step up. In a crammed cricket calendar such rotation is inevitable, Cummins says.
