Follow UsJust months ahead of Ashes 2025/26, Australia have been dealt a killer blow, as skipper Pat Cummins is reportedly set to miss the first Test in Perth. According to The Age, the Australian skipper could miss the opener in Perth with fresh reports suggesting that his back stress problem has not healed yet.
The trouble doesn’t end there, however, for Australia, as the reports added that there’s a ‘high possibility’ that Cummins could miss the entire series. If that happens, vice-captain Steve Smith will take over the duties and will captain the Test side for the first time in a full-fledged series after the 2023 Border-Gavaskar Trophy in India.
In that case, Australia will have no choice but to feature a pace-bowling trio of Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland, and will miss out on the all-important batting depth against the uber-aggressive England side. England haven’t won an Ashes away in Australia since 2011, and they couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity given Australia’s bruised state.
“That would be devastating,” Cummins said in Brisbane a month ago when asked if there was a possibility he would miss the start of the Ashes. “We’ll be doing everything we can to be right for that, [and] make a few decisions a little bit closer, but [I’m] confident we’ll do the rehab right and give it a good crack.
“This far out it’s hard to know, but we’re trying to make sure we’re doing everything right to be right for Perth. It’s a big Ashes series, [it] doesn’t get much bigger, so you’re willing to be aggressive and take a few risks to try to play as much of the Tests as you can.
But at this point, it looks highly unlikely that Cummins would play a major role in the outcome of the series.