Michael Vaughan Highlights HUGE PROBLEM For Australia After Pat Cummins' Injury

Pat Cummins has been Australia’s iron man since his return to the Test side in 2017, but he’s suffered his first major injury blow in the last eight years, and that’s put his participation in The Ashes in jeopardy. Cummins is dealing with a back stress issue, and while he’s not officially ruled out of the series yet, the chances of him featuring look slim, despite head coach Andrew McDonald being mildly optimistic about the captain’s return.

Australia have a world-class backup for Cummins in the form of Scott Boland, but former England captain Michael Vaughan believes that Cummins is irreplaceable because of another reason: the balance he brings to the side. Boland coming in will mean Boland, Lyon and Hazlewood at 9, 10 & 11, three players who are capable of holding the bat but nothing more.

“Scott Boland is a very good stand-in bowler, but if Cummins is unavailable then all of a sudden Australia are saddled with a long tail: Mitchell Starc, Boland, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon. Alex Carey is a good player at No 7, but when he looks behind him and sees Starc at No 8... wow, that batting order is light,” Vaughan wrote in his column for Telegraph Sport.

“Over the last few Ashes series, especially in Australia, their tail has had a massive say in the series. England have struggled to finish them off. But now, you think taking 20 wickets looks that bit easier for England, especially with Australia’s top three looking weak, too.”

But Vaughan believes there are multiple solutions to this problem, one of them being playing Michael Neser (instead of Boland), someone who is not only a very good bowler but one of the best lower-order batters in the country.

“I genuinely feel Australia have three options for the first two Tests. One is to go all out with their best bowlers – Starc, Boland, Hazlewood and Lyon – and try to blow England away, which is probably what they will do,” Vaughan wrote.

“The other option is go for Michael Neser, who can bat a bit and be a Cummins-style all-rounder, or they play an extra batter in Mitchell Marsh, who along with Cameron Green and Beau Webster can provide some back-up seam.”

The former England captain further wrote that, with Cummins’s injury, this might be England’s best chance to win The Ashes Down Under since 2010/11, when the Three Lions won the series 3-1.

“With Cummins out of at least the Perth Test, and the uncertainty over Australia’s batting line-up, it just has shades of 2010-11. Sometimes you need a bit of luck and, at the moment, the rub of the green is going with England,” he wrote.

“That does not mean you win a series, and England could suffer injuries of their own on their pre-Ashes tour of New Zealand, but their odds are a lot better with the news of Cummins’s injury.”