Australia pacer Scott Boland believes that even though Pat Cummins may not be fully fit as of cuurent, he will not entirely miss the upcoming five-match Test series against England. Boland pointed out that Cummins is incredibly resilient and even if he misses out on the first match, he will make a return at some point during the series.
"Patty's so resilient. He can play through a little bit of pain if he has some. Those guys play so much cricket there's bound to be games where someone misses out. But if Pat happens to not play the first game, we've got a pretty handy in coming in at some stage during the summer,' Boland said.
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Australia are yet to announce their squad for the series against Australia and are likely to do when the situation with Cummins becomes clear. The Australia captain has been on the sidelines since the West Indies Test series that was concluded in July. He has been recovering from a back injury, but wasn't able to make it in time for the India white-ball series and thus, will end up missing the assignment in its entirety.
Cummins to play Ashes opener?
Cummins recently said that "less likely than likely" that he will be able to recover in time for the series and this could see Boland leading Australia's pace attack alongside Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood. Notably, Boland had only featured in one out of the three matches in the West Indies Test series, but had went on to impress in his only appearance. He picked up a total of six scalps in the match and even a hat-trick during the second innings as the Baggy Greens won the match comfortably by 176 runs.
England's squad for The Ashes
On the other hand, England have already announced their squad for The Ashes and have opted to go for a pace heavy bowling attack. They have chosen a total of seven seam options in their squad and have also gone for two spin options in Shoaib Bashir and Jacob Bethell. It remains to be seen how will their team far in Australia where they are yet to win a Test match since 2011.
England's squad for The Ashes: Ben Stokes (captain), Harry Brook (vice-captain), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith, Josh Tongue, Mark Wood.