Having made back-to-back finals of the World Test Championship, Australia are clearly one of the best red-ball sides in the world over the last few years but the defeat against South Africa at Lord’s on Saturday has left Pat Cummins and selectors with some thinking to do as a new cycle starts rather quickly.
There is not much time to foster the wounds of a rare ICC final defeat for the Aussies, because a tour of the West Indies is fast approaching, with the first Test beginning in Barbados on June 25, followed by matches in Grenada and Jamaica in a three-match series. Indeed, Australia had already announced that the same squad that was named for the WTC Final will tour the Caribbean as well.
In the press conference, Cummins, when asked if it feels like the start of a new cycle for Australia, said: “I don’t particularly know why, but it does feel like a little bit of a fresh start. Fast forward a couple of years, you start maybe thinking about who’s going to win, hopefully if we make the final, who’s going to win that and maybe do we want to get some games into them? Do we feel like now’s the right time to change or do you hold with the team that got us to the final? I think we’ve got a couple of weeks before the first test of the Windies so I think we’ll sit down and have a bit of a think after we digest this game. But for me I think a new WTC cycle in some ways does feel like a bit of a reset.”
Asked to elaborate about the rest, Cummins said he will have a sit-down with the selectors soon. “It’s probably more for the selectors and me to sit down and we kind of map it ahead. In white-ball series, a lot of the time you build on four-year cycles around World Cups for ODIs. Maybe it’s an opportunity in the test match to do something similar, but it’s a little bit early to tell but again coming to this match you’ve got guys like Sam Konstas and Scott Boland, Josh Inglis all those guys who are right on the fringes. After this test match everyone gets thrown back into the conversation and it’s a little bit of a reset for that first test.”
One concern right away is the injury that suffered while fielding close at first slip. the former captain visibly in a lot of pain as he walked off the field after a dropped chance off Temba Bavuma on Day 3. Cummins said that it is unlikely to have him back at least for the first Test, but he will be assessed further.
The lethal bowling unit, barring injuries, has carried this Australia squad for a while now but there are plenty of miles on the legs of Cummins, Mitch Starc, Nathan Lyon, and Josh Hazlewood. But it is the batting department that is perhaps a bigger cause of concern for Australia, with Usman Khawaja’s opening partner being changed around quite a bit and the senior opener himself not having the best of matches at Lord’s. “He obviously would like a few more runs. Again, going back to that Sri Lankan series, his name was thrown up there publicly and he scored a double hundred and showed how good he is, So I’m sure runs aren’t too far away,” Cummins said.
AUS SQUAD WI TESTS: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, , Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Sam Konstas, Matt Kuhnemann, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster. Travelling reserve: Brendan Doggett
