Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood have both been officially ruled out of the Champions Trophy. The two of them and Mitchell Marsh “are managing some ongoing injuries and haven’t come up in time for the Champions Trophy,” selection chair George Bailey said on Thursday.
Australia have until February 12 to finalise their Champions Trophy squad. It’s the same day on which they play the first of two ODIs against Sri Lanka in Colombo – they have named Sean Abbott, Spencer Johnson and Ben Dwarshuis for the two games. It’s possible that one or more of the three quick bowlers could get in to the Champions Trophy squad, as could legspinner Tanveer Sangha, spin-bowling allrounder Cooper Connolly or batter Jake Fraser-McGurk, who have all been called up for the two-match ODI series.
“While disappointing, it does present a great opportunity for other players to perform for Australia in a world event,” Bailey said.
Cricket Australia said Cummins and Hazlewood would begin an “extended period of rehabilitation”. They are missing the ongoing Test series in Sri Lanka too, but there is no reason to believe at this stage that they wouldn’t be able to recover in time for the World Test Championship final against South Africa at Lord’s in June.
As reported on ESPNcricinfo earlier, Australia are likely to pick between Steven Smith and Travis Head to lead Australia in the two Sri Lanka ODIs and then the Champions Trophy.
On Wednesday, while saying that Cummins was “heavily unlikely” to make the Champions Trophy, head coach Andrew McDonald had said about the captaincy that “Steve Smith and Travis Head are the two that we’ve been having conversations with while we’ve been building out that Champions Trophy team along with Pat back home. They’ll be the two that we look at for that leadership post.
“They’re the two obvious ones. Steve has done a great job here in the [first] Test match. He’s done some good work in one-day international cricket across the journey as well. So it’s between those two.”
Cummins skipped the Sri Lanka Tests to be at home for the birth of his second child, but he has also been nursing the ankle issue that had flared up after a heavy workload in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India. Hazlewood is understood to be dealing with a hip issue after recovering from the side and calf injuries that made him miss three of the five Tests against India and the Test tour of Sri Lanka.
