Australia skipper Pat Cummins is making excellent progress from his ankle injury and is on course to return to action in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025, according to a report on. After “managing” his ankle injury across the five Tests against India at home, he opted to skip the Sri Lanka tour and the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 to be available for the IPL and the World Test Championship (WTC) final against South Africa after that.
Cummins not only led Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) to the IPL 2024 final but also his Australian side beat India in the WTC final 2023. “The ankle is all going strong, [have been] able to give it a good rest and then been building up slowly, which you don’t get to do when you play lots of cricket,” Cummins said.
“It’s feeling as strong as it has for a fair while. Should be fine [for the IPL], that’s the plan. So have a few weeks of bowling, building back up and then hopefully don’t have to worry about it for a while.”
Cummins also said that he never considered surgery on his injured ankle and instead decided to go the rehabilitation route. “It’s something that we’ve opted never to have surgery on or intervene too much, just a lot to rehab,” he explained.
“Having this break meant that I could get a couple of cortisones and really rehab it well the last couple of weeks.”
Cummins is open to missing a bunch of white-ball matches ahead of the Ashes but intends to play the entire three-match Test series against West Indies, which follows the WTC final. “Sometimes by missing the odd tour, you actually end up playing more cricket for the whole year,” he said.
“I think in the past you used to play everything, whereas now, absolutely, you try and make sure the players are at their peak for as long as you can for the year and to play as much of the important stuff each year. It’s just the way of the world. Everyone’s used to it.”
Not just Cummins, Australia have gone into the Champions Trophy without Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc, too. In their absence, Ben Dwarshuis, Sean Abbott and Nathan Ellis led the bowling attack against England.
They registered a comprehensive victory over England in their campaign opener, but their second game against South Africa was washed out without a toss. A win over Afghanistan in their next game on February 28 (Friday) will assure them of a place in the semi-final.
