Pat Cummins likely to play Sheffield Shield before India Test series

Australia’s Test captain Pat Cummins could make his return to Sheffield Shield ahead of the big five-match home series against India, starting on November 22 in Perth. The right-arm quick hasn't played red-ball cricket for New South Wales since February 2021.

Cummins, who recently featured in Major League Cricket (MLC) in the USA, has been rested from Australia's white-ball tour of Scotland and England in September. In the next two months, Cummins will focus on strength and conditioning but could make an appearance in the ODI series against Pakistan in the first half of November.

Australia are scheduled to play five Tests against India and two against Sri Lanka. Those seven games will decide whether the defending champions, who are currently second on the points table, get another shot at the World Test Championship.

"Ronnie (Australia head coach Andrew McDonald) called me the other day and said we need to talk about this. I prefer to go a little bit fresher but definitely play some cricket going in,” Cummins told News Corp.

"So I'd say it's either two or three ODIs, plus a Shield (game) or maybe just some Shield, maybe some NSW one-day stuff. I imagine kind of late October/early November will be when I start playing building up for the Tests."

Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon could also feature in the Sheffield Shield ahead of the Border-Gavaskar trophy. The same goes for the batters. There are also a couple of ‘A’ games between Australia and India before the main tour and it won’t come as a surprise if some of the big names from both teams feature in that series.

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