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Pat Cummins is currently recovering from a wrist injury © Getty
Australia’s Test and ODI captain Pat Cummins is targeting the series in India for his comeback after a wrist injury ruled him out of the series in South Africa. Cummins was not named in the T20I squad and will not be playing the ODIs as well even though he will be travelling to South Africa for the second leg of the tour.
“It hurt day one when I did it and it hurt a lot when I was batting, but I didn’t think it was too bad,” Cummins said of the injury. “Then with each day it got a little bit sorer so I knew it was probably bone as opposed to a muscle (issue).”
“I’ll head over to South Africa at the back-end of that leg. But we’re probably looking more at those one-dayers ahead of the World Cup. It shouldn’t be too bad. Another few weeks and it’ll be right.”
There have been suggestions that Australia might have a new captain to lead the white-ball teams after the World Cup with Cummins focussing solely on Tests. Mitchell Marsh was recently appointed T20I captain for the three-match series in South Africa and the all-rounder will be one of the favourites to lead the 50-over side as well in the absence of Cummins.
“I haven’t thought about it too much to be honest,” Cummins said on the ODI captaincy post the World Cup. “We will play this World Cup and then assess it after that. The good thing is we’ve got a few options. (Marsh) is probably the most obvious one if he’s doing the T20s as well.”
The pacer reserved special praise for Marsh, who has staged a remarkable return to the national side across formats recently that included a century in his comeback Test recently. “He’s always been a huge member of the team, a real leader,” Cummins said. “As a captain, that’s what you want, a guy that’s going out there, taking the game on, someone we can all get behind. Off the field, he’s just a great people-person. His energy’s infectious, he’s great to hang around with, always good fun.”
© Cricbuzz