George Bailey lays out plans for Pat Cummins keeping high-voltage India series in mind

After the T20 World Cup, Pat Cummins was expected to take a break from cricket and keeping that in mind, Australia didn’t name the seamer for the series against England and Scotland. However, the 31-year-old decided to play for San Francisco Unicorns in the second edition of the Major League Cricket (MLC), which doesn’t match George Bailey’s plans for the pacer.

Speaking about the same, Australia’s chief selector confirmed that Cummins joining MLC was a momentary thing and believes that playing a few extra days won’t hamper the cricketer. The 41-year-old understands that the past 12 months have been tough for the Australia captain, given that he played all the matches in the Ashes and then in the ODI World Cup, IPL and in the T20 World Cup.

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After the MLC, Bailey expects Cummins to take a break and prepare for the summer, in which, India will travel Down Under for a five-match series, which can decide the fate of the World Test Championship final.

“This is something we have been planning for him and with him for about 12 months, looking at the series we are prioritising and how important he is for us as a leader. This was the gap. The MLC opportunity came up late. As far as the plan goes, it’s effectively an extra 18 or 19 days that he is up for, it doesn’t fundamentally change the plan we have for him,” Bailey was quoted as saying by Yahoo Sport.

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“Certainly, in terms of building him up and getting him ready for the Australian summer … it’s really busy. It will be a pretty heavy period for him, he’s got a couple of things he needs to work on physically. He’s had a lot of cricket and this is an opportunity to really set himself up for the next period of time. That’s a constant discussion around players and certainly multi-format players who are playing everything,” he added.