Cummins' 'aggressive' recovery overcomes Ashes doubts

Pat Cummins has revealed just how close he was to missing the entire Ashes series as he prepares to make his return from a back injury and captain Australia in Wednesday's third Test at Adelaide Oval.

Cummins has not played a competitive match for five months due to what Cricket Australia (CA) have called a "lumbar bone stress" issue in his lower back, and admitted on Tuesday that he had felt some soreness during his most recent Test appearance against West Indies at Sabina Park in July.

He was initially considered doubtful for the entire Ashes series but has completed an "aggressive" rehabilitation plan unscathed, and was even considered for selection in the second Test at the Gabba. He will instead return in Adelaide this week, replacing Steven Smith as captain, and will not have any limitations on the number of overs he is allowed to bowl.

Cummins sustained a series of lower-back injuries in his late teens and early 20s, which made him wait five-and-a-half years between his first and second Test caps. He said that he had developed "complete trust" in CA's medical staff after many years of working with them but conceded that any setbacks in his recovery would have ruled him out of the series altogether.

"I'm good to go," Cummins said after Australia's final pre-match training session. "I've been bowling [at] 100% for a while. If I'd played in Brisbane, I would probably have been on limited overs. But this week, it's just 'go and play' like any other Test match.

"The medical staff are the leading experts in this around the world. They see more of these injuries than anyone else, and I have complete trust in them. That's probably the most comforting part.

"I know I got asked a million times in the off-season, 'Are you going to play?'. I genuinely didn't know. As long as everything tracked well, I would be in this position, but we also knew that you've got to tread lightly around some of these injuries, and if there was a flare-up or a setback, I wouldn't have played. We wouldn't have risked it.

"I feel like I've been really well managed and well supported, and we've all been pretty open-minded, the medical staff, coaches and myself, and luckily, things have played out pretty well."

Cummins' return still carries some level of risk after an unusually short rehabilitation programme, given he only resumed bowling at the end of October. But he was bullish about his fitness on Tuesday, even as he revealed that he had first felt discomfort in his back during the Jamaica Test in July when he did not bowl in a second innings that lasted just 14.3 overs.

"I first felt it in West Indies," Cummins said. "Second innings Jamaica, things happened pretty quickly and I was pretty happy not to bowl there: I was feeling a bit sore. I got an initial scan which showed something potentially brewing, but a lot of these times, the next scan shows a bit more, and four weeks later, I had another scan that looked a bit more serious.

"We know the pathway that you need to do to come back from a stress injury like that. I had 16 weeks completely off bowling, make sure the bone heals really well, looking good, and then from there it's ramping up. You normally try to ramp up - the medical staff will probably tell me I've got this completely wrong - maybe over three or four months.

"That would obviously have meant that I missed the Ashes, so we set a pretty aggressive plan to get up in six or seven weeks. I haven't had any hiccups, I'm feeling great, feeling probably better than I would have thought. The back's healed well, so here we are."

Many teams would see Cummins' return as an opportunity to put pressure on Australia's attack by batting for as long as possible, but Ben Stokes said that it would not prompt England to explicitly change their gameplan. "I won't be paying too much attention to the fact that Pat's not played since July and try to use that as something to go at," he said.

There have been long breaks after the first two Tests of this series, but the final three will be played back-to-back-to-back, with only four scheduled days off in each gap. It is unlikely that Cummins will be available for all three, but Australia will have Michael Neser and Brendan Doggett fresh and ready to go after their omission for the third Test.

Australia are 2-0 up in the series despite Cummins' absence from the first two Tests, and the fact that Josh Hazlewood has been ruled out with hamstring and Achilles injuries. Jhye Richardson, who won his most recent Test cap against England in Adelaide four years ago, has also been training with the squad this week as he returns from shoulder surgery.

"It's incredible. It shows great depth in the Aussie cricket system at the moment with fast bowlers," Cummins said. "It's almost worked out perfectly. We're halfway through a series. I've come back online, you've got Ness [Neser] and Doggy [Doggett] who are resting from this week but obviously got themselves into the series and are available for the last two games.

"We've seen Jhye Richardson out the back bowling, so it feels like everything has come together and we're not just hanging on to the end of the series like sometimes you are. We're actually peaking, and [will] hopefully have heaps of resources available.

"The guys who have stepped in have been fantastic. I think it's huge credit to those guys that have stepped in, but also the coaches, and Steve [Smith] managing them throughout the game."