Bailey Admits To Not Having Much Idea About Cummins’ Availability In Champions Trophy
Cummins, who is missing out on Australia’s upcoming two-match Test series against Sri Lanka due to the birth of his second child, recently went for scans over an ankle problem he was managing while leading Australia to a 3-1 series win over India earlier this month.
While Cummins has been named as Australia’s captain in the preliminary 15-man squad for the eight-team tournament starting on February 19, teams are allowed to make a change to their teams a week before their first match.
“I don’t really have any more information than what I shared when we were announcing the Test squad a few days ago. I believe (Cummins) has had the scan, but I wanted to give him a little bit of space at the back end of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and obviously baby pending.”
“We’ll work through that in good time. I’ve got no idea what the scan has said or what it showed. I know he’s very keen, so we’ll work through that. That’s always the challenge with the ICC requirements in terms of naming your squad this far out. I don’t have a date for you in terms of a hard timeline,” Bailey told reporters after announcing Australia’s squad on Monday.
All-rounder and T20I captain Mitchell Marsh looms as the stand-in captain if Cummins’ misses the Champions Trophy. Another big call Australia made was to leave out young opener Jake-Fraser McGurk, who has struggled to get big runs at international and domestic levels.
In place of him, Australia have included Matt Short. “As far as Jake goes, I think he’s still very young. We know that’s going to be a journey. The skill set is still incredibly exciting. We’ve got plenty of top order batters in the mix there.”
“It is a pretty preliminary squad. There will be opportunities to move should anyone get hit with injury or we need to change the balance of that for some reason in the lead-up,” added Bailey.
Australia have a plethora of all-round options in Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, and Aaron Hardie, while Nathan Ellis was selected ahead of Sean Abbott in the fast-bowling department. Australia, who last won Champions Trophy in 2009, are in Group B alongside England, South Africa and Afghanistan.
“It is a pretty preliminary squad. There will be opportunities to move should anyone get hit with injury or we need to change the balance of that for some reason in the lead-up,” added Bailey.
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Article Source: IANS