\n<\/p>\n
Australia captain Pat Cummins is back bowling multiple overs on a reduced run-up and has targeted returning to the team for the second Ashes Test against England, a day-nighter in Brisbane starting on 4 December.<\/p>\n
The fast bowler has been sidelined by a lower-back issue since July and has already been ruled out of the series opener in Perth, where he will be replaced as skipper by Steve Smith.<\/p>\n
Scott Boland is expected to step in for the 32-year-old in the pace attack in Perth but Cummins said he was on track to pick up the pink ball at the Gabba a week later.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the aim and we\u2019re building our plan to the second Test,\u201d Cummins said. \u201cIt\u2019s probably not until you get a bit closer that you can really know where you\u2019re at. The good thing is that I\u2019m pulling up well and the body is great.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to keep that second Test as a live option. I\u2019ll have a really good bowl in Perth, and by then I\u2019ll know where I\u2019m at.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cummins, who has been ever-present in the Australia side for Ashes clashes since playing his first Test against England in the 2017-18 series, said there was still uncertainty about how much of a role he would be able to play over the series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really want to commit to anything this far out. I\u2019m pretty keen to play as much as I can,\u201d Cummins said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut realistically, if we have a big game and bowl 40 or 50 overs and then there\u2019s a game that starts a few days later, it might be a bridge too far. I\u2019m trying to get right, and if I get right then hopefully I\u2019ll try to play most of it as I can.\u201c<\/p>\n
There is a four-day gap between the conclusion of the third Test in Adelaide and the fourth in Melbourne with another four-day break before the fifth and final Test in Sydney.<\/p>\n
Australia named their squad for the first Test on Wednesday with Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, Boland, Sean Abbott and Brendan Doggett the fast-bowling options.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Cummins launched a defence of Australia\u2019s selectors, rejecting Steve Waugh\u2019s concerns over the looming transition of the Test side.<\/p>\n
Waugh created headlines on Wednesday when he accused chief selector George Bailey of rarely having the appetite to make tough calls needed for an aging side.<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The Test great also said players should not be publicly pushing teammates for selection, adamant that was a job for only Bailey and his panel.<\/p>\n But Cummins stressed on Thursday that he did not feel the players held any power, selectors had generally \u201cbeen on the money\u201d with their calls and the use of white-ball cricket and Australia A tours had the team set up for the future.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the selectors have done a great job of managing the transition,\u201d the injured Test captain said. \u201cOne-day cricket, T20 cricket, Aussie A, there is Shield cricket. There are many pathways to upskill the next guys who will debut for Australia down the track.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been really fortunate that a lot of our guys have probably played longer in their careers than perhaps previous guys have. So we haven\u2019t had that churn. It was the same conversation three or four years ago, saying the end is close. But some of these guys, the way they look after themselves … They\u2019re amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australia captain Pat Cummins is back bowling multiple overs on a reduced run-up and has targeted returning to the team for the second Ashes Test against England, a day-nighter in Brisbane starting on 4 December. The fast bowler has been sidelined by a lower-back issue since July and has already been ruled out of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[16527,12027,18686,15641,15180,3665,1007,1415,76],"class_list":{"0":"post-32348","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ashes","9":"tag-brisbane","10":"tag-cummins","11":"tag-doubts","12":"tag-pat","13":"tag-remain","14":"tag-return","15":"tag-targets","16":"tag-test"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}