Doubts over Cummins' fitness for first Ashes Test grow, return remains unknown

The chances of Pat Cummins being fit for the first Ashes Test are growing slimmer by the day as he is yet to be cleared to bowl with just over six weeks to go before the first ball of the series in Perth.

News Limited and Nine newspapers reported on Wednesday that Cummins' latest scan on the lumbar bone stress issue in his lower back had shown signs of improvement but not enough to be cleared to bowl again.

Cricket Australia have not provided a comment but ESPNcricinfo understands that Cummins' rehabilitation is continuing to progress and no decisions have been made on when the skipper will return to bowl, his participation in the first Test or the Ashes series as a whole.

Cummins has not bowled a ball since Australia's last Test match in Jamaica in July. Shortly after the lumbar issue was revealed in early September Cummins said he was "willing to take a few risks and be a little bit aggressive" to play in the Ashes which included not playing any white or red-ball lead-up games.

But the timeline to build his bowling loads adequately to play in Perth, even with some associated risk, have become tighter than would normally be acceptable for CA's medical and high performance staff.

Cummins has been doing leg strength work during his time off but has not been able to do any rotational work. Even beyond the back issue itself, the risk of a soft tissue injury becomes greater off a compromised preparation and Cummins has had to manage some soft tissue and ankle issues over the last few years with carefully tailored build-ups into key series.

Last year he was rested from Australia's limited-overs tour of the UK to do a 10-week block of training in the lead-in to the Border-Gavaskar series. Even then he only managed to play one 50-over game for New South Wales and two ODIs for Australia before the first Test against India after initial plans to play a Sheffield Shield game were aborted.

The first Test of the Ashes starts on November 21, six weeks from Friday. The second Test begins on December 4 in Brisbane. The third Ashes Test in Adelaide starts in exactly 10 weeks on December 17 and the fourth Test is on Boxing Day, another nine days after that.

With eight-day rests after each of the first two Tests of the series there is a chance, if Cummins were to need extra time, that Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Scott Boland could get through to the end of Adelaide without needing a rest or reinforcements.

There is only a four-day gap between Adelaide and Melbourne and also between Melbourne and Sydney. The need for fresh legs in both bowling units at the back-end of the series could be vital, as was shown in the 2023 Ashes series in England where Mark Wood and Chris Woakes both missed the first two Tests before dominating the last three as the freshest bowlers on either side.

India's Jasprit Bumrah was injured trying to carry his team's attack through five Tests last summer, injuring his back in the final Test in Sydney off a four-day break having bowled the highest number of overs in a single Test in his career in Melbourne, following huge loads across the first three Tests.

The management of Starc, Hazlewood and Boland in the lead-up to Perth will become even more important. Starc and Hazlewood were named in Australia's ODI squad to face India in three matches starting on October 19 while Hazlewood was also named for the first two T20Is of the five-match series against India that begins on October 29. Both men look set to play one Sheffield Shield game as well for New South Wales on November 10.

Boland played the first Shield game of the summer for Victoria and got through 35 overs. He will likely play at least one more but the chances of him playing three appear slim and he definitely won't play all four.

Among the reinforcements beyond those three, Michael Neser bowled well on a flat pitch at Allan Border Field against Tasmania taking six wickets across 43 overs. It remains to be seen how he might be managed over the next three Shield matches coming off a major hamstring injury last season.

Brendan Doggett missed the opening Shield round of the summer because of a minor hamstring problem but is expected to line up for South Australia against Queensland next week. Sean Abbott is another in the mix and could return to Shield cricket for New South Wales next week in Melbourne against Victoria after being left out of Australia's ODI squad to face India. He has been named in the T20I squad for the first two matches on October 29 and 31 which overlaps

Beyond the bowling, Cummins' potential absence would leave Australia needing a replacement captain with Steven Smith the most likely candidate having stood in as skipper six times since Cummins took over the captaincy in 2021. Smith has captained Australia in 40 Tests overall. Travis Head is the other vice-captain of the Test team but he would be less likely to take the reins ahead of Smith.