Ashes 2025-26: ‘We weren’t playing silly buggers’ - Bailey clarifies Cummins selection confusion

Pat Cummins emerged as a genuine recall option in Brisbane over the past week as he surprised team management with the speed of his recovery. Despite his encouraging progress, Australia’s selectors ultimately felt there was still too much risk in playing a bowler whose workload would need careful management. However, they remain very confident that he will be fully ready for the Adelaide Test.

Chair of selectors George Bailey clarified that the panel had not been playing silly buggers by keeping Cummins in contention while leaving him out of the selected squad for the second Test. He acknowledged, though, that the hug shared between Cummins and head coach Andrew McDonald during a pitch inspection on Wednesday, December 3, was purely in jest.

Bailey added that when the squad was initially named, there was no expectation that Cummins would be available. But as the week progressed, the possibility became increasingly realistic thanks to his significant training load in Brisbane. His sessions included two strong spells on Monday, December 1 and, importantly, his first instance of bowling on consecutive days since the injury, an encouraging milestone that brought him close to a return.

"We weren't playing silly buggers with him not being in the squad and in the mix. But I think once we got up here, saw his training, got as much of the background medical information as well, it became a live possibility. Then it was just working through the permutations of what would that look like in terms of the amount of overs, what would it look like going forward from that as well,” said Bailey as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.

"I don't think we thought he was going to be as close, it really changed through the week. Then risk tolerance became the conversation around what he could take on. Yes, he could have played. There would have been some restrictions around the overs and then obviously just the permutations [around that]," he added.

There was also careful consideration of what bringing Cummins back for this Test would mean for the matches ahead, as well as the added pressure it could place on the rest of the bowling attack.

"Being in a really controlled environment [in] the nets where you can be really structured around the breaks and how you want it, then it's just that risk of maybe going into a game. There's some things you can control and probably some things that do get taken out of your control,” said Bailey.

Meanwhile, Bailey clarified that the selectors never reached the point of debating Usman Khawaja’s place for the Gabba Test, as he had not been passed fit at any stage. Khawaja trained on Tuesday, December 2 but was ruled out the following day after failing to recover from the back spasms he suffered in Perth. He resumed batting in the nets on Thursday, December 4.

"He hadn't got his back back to baseline. And if you're not back to the starting point then it's obviously a heightened risk. There's obviously your own performance, but when you're injured and you feel like you've let the team down, I think that was something he was just conscious of; if it happened again, it would be an awful feeling. So sitting this one out buys time,” said Bailey.

For now, Head is not being locked in as a long-term opener beyond this Test, and there has even been discussion about maintaining in-match flexibility with the batting order.

"We've gone into this series so far very much with a Test-by-Test focus. I imagine we'll get another look at it here and see what that looks like and see that combination. We can cross that bridge [and] make that decision as and when we need to make that decision, but it's an interesting one. What's the threshold now for it to be a specialist opener, what's that look like?,” Bailey concluded.