Australia’s vice-captain Pat Cummins says he’s ready to lead the team in the unlikely event that Tim Paine isn’t fit for the start of the Ashes.
Paine will not play any Shield cricket ahead of the series as he plans to complete his comeback from neck surgery in grade cricket this weekend, followed by a second XI game for Tasmania next week.
“Hopefully Tim will be fine, he’s nearing 100 per cent … but I’ll be ready if I have to, but I doubt that,” Cummins said.
He added that there’s no reason a pace bowler couldn’t be captain, but said you needed to be aware of the duel workloads.
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“If I was in the role and I found it tough, at times, there’s ten other guys I’d lean on out in the middle,” he said.
“You’ve got people like Smithy and Davey Warner who are incredibly experienced, all the bowlers are experienced and look after themselves pretty well so I’d have no issues handballing it over to other people to help out.”
Cummins, along with fellow quicks Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc, will have to make a quick adjustment back to Test bowling after all featuring in Australia’s T20 World Cup success.
“The benefit of the short spells is that we’re really, really fresh. I always feel like it’s better to be underdone than overdone coming into a big Test series,” he said.
“We’ve got access to quite a few centre wickets. We’ll have three, four, five centre wickets where we try and have relatively big days, bowl a couple of spells on those days, and then we’ll be ready to go.”
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The extended Australia squad was named earlier today, with the returning players currently in hotel quarantine ahead of an intrasquad game on December 1 to December 3 ahead of the Gabba Test starting on December 8.
Cummins said that he would have preferred more red ball cricket but that he “absolutely” feels in top shape.
“With no games, it gave me the chance to focus on a few different things, so my body feels as good as it has in a couple of years,” Cummins said.
“There’s no niggles, I feel really fresh and I always love going into a series giving myself the best chance to turn up and, if I have to bowl 50 overs in a Test, I can.”