What does Pat Cummins' absence mean for Australia?

It has been inevitable for a month, but Australia have finally accepted that Pat Cummins won't be available for the first Test against England despite hopes of a Lazarus-like recovery from his lumbar stress injury.

The countdown clock now resets to the Brisbane Test which starts on December 4 after he returns to bowl later this week.

Australia coach Andrew McDonald and chair of selectors George Bailey are bullish that their captain will play a major part in the series and there's a belief he could be ready for the Gabba. Cummins' comments at various media commitments over the past six weeks have been more sober and grounded in the reality that the trajectory of his recovery is completely unknown.

That unknown aside, what does it all mean for Perth?

Harry Brook said "hopefully that plays into our hands… [But] we can't take anybody lightly."

Some former England players turned pundits have suggested the visitors should not fear Scott Boland and "the worst Australian team since 2010" in Cummins' absence.

It is worth noting that of the six Tests Australia have played without Cummins since he became the Test captain in 2021, they are yet to lose having won five and drawn one. That included victory in Adelaide during the 2021-22 Ashes with an attack that was missing both Cummins and Josh Hazlewood.

"The worst Australian team since 2010" has also won eight of their last 10 Tests and lost only one, this year's World Test Championship final, including three wins at home against the same India side that drew with England 2-2 just recently.

However, India did pummel Australia in the last Test they played in Perth. An attack without Cummins - a bowler with 309 Test wickets at 22.10 and currently ranked No. 4 in the world - could provide an early chance for England's aggressive batters to make an impression.

It has been the best batting surface in Australia across the last four years by some margin since the new Kookaburra and greener surfaces have come into vogue.

Only five overseas batters have scored centuries in Australia in that time and three of them have come in Perth, including one each to Yashasvi Jaiswal and Virat Kohli last year. Kohli's century is notable for the fact that the same player returned scores of 7, 11, 3, 36, 5, 17 and 6 at Australia's other venues and retired from Test cricket after the series.

It is, however, Cummins' least effective venue in Australia, albeit the numbers are far from poor. He has never taken more than three wickets in a Test in five appearances there. He averages 26.33 and strikes at 62.2 when he averages under 22 and strikes at under 46.4 at the other four Ashes venues with at least one five-wicket haul at each of them.

The steep bounce on offer in Perth can be a weird kryptonite of sorts for Cummins. His ability to extract bounce from placid surfaces is what has made him so great for so long. However, Perth is a place where he has had trouble finding the right length to threaten the top of the stumps without overpitching.

That may be a different story for Boland's lower release point. McDonald noted recently that criticism of Boland's 2023 Ashes performance should be viewed in the context of how little bounce was available for him in England.

Boland averages 12.63 in nine Tests in Australia, a truly insane number that highlights how sporting Australian pitches have been. But he has not played a Test or even a first-class match at Optus Stadium. He has only featured in a handful of BBL games at the ground. His first venture there with a red ball will be an unknown.

Beyond the bowling, the loss of Cummins the captain in the short-term will likely have more of an off-field effect than it does on. Steven Smith has led Australia to five Test victories in his absence, among 23 captaincy wins in his career, and the bowling attack with a combined total of 329 appearances will unlikely need careful shepherding.

Cummins will still be in the dressing room for the first Test, which will be unique in some ways. But it will also add to a sense of business as usual for Australia in terms of internal dynamics. Nathan McSweeney, who captain's South Australia and Australia A, noted Cummins' calmness as he spoke to the group following the defeat to India in Perth last year when the intensity of the external criticism was at its fiercest.

While Cummins' primary role is with the ball, where Australia may also feel his absence is with his batting and fielding. Australia's lower order is weakened without him. He won Australia an Ashes Test at Edgbaston with the bat in 2023 and played two vital hands in the win over India at the MCG last summer.

Australia's ground fielding is also weaker as a result given they are not the most agile and dynamic fielding group ever assembled, although Marnus Labuschagne's likely recall offsets Cummins' absence somewhat and the catching cordon remains incredibly strong if Beau Webster and Cameron Green are both selected.

Whichever way you cut it up, there's no doubt England's batting group will sleep sounder ahead of the first Test in Perth. No one has knocked over Joe Root in Test cricket more times than Cummins' total of 11. Cummins has also removed his opposing captain Ben Stokes six times in Test cricket.

No matter how well opposition teams are going in Australia when the surface flattens out, and no surface in Australia can flatten more than Perth does on days two and three, the threat of Cummins is ever-present when he's on the field. He has a unique talismanic ability to extract something out of nothing at a time when his team needs it most. Finding another man to stand tall in those moments will be Australia's greatest challenge in his absence, however long that may be for.