Australia’s World Cup-winning captain Pat Cummins unlikely for ICC Champions Trophy

The coach also said that there were doubts over availability of another star bowler, Josh Hazlewood

Hyderabad: Australia’s 2023 World Cup-winning captain Pat Cummins is “hugely unlikely” to be fit for selection for the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy, according to the team’s head coach Andrew McDonald.

The coach also said that there were doubts over availability of another star bowler, Josh Hazlewood.

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Both the quick bowlers including the team captain Cummins were named without riders in Australia’s provisional list of the 15-member squad. However, injury concerns to them both put the selectors in a spot of bother.

Pat Cummins was not a part of the team travelling to Sri Lanka due to the birth of his second child. Meanwhile, he was also nursing an ankle injury sustained during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India.

Hazlewood, on the other hand was ruled out of the entire series, after he suffered a side strain during the BGT.

Mitchell Marsh, who has previously led the Australian team in ODIs in Pat Cummins’s absence is also of the tournament out with a lower back injury.

According to reports, the team’s star opener Travis Head or Steve Smith, who is currently leading the team in Sri Lanka, are in line to replace the injured Par Cummins at the ICC tournament.