Australia National Cricket Team skipper Pat Cummins provided an update about the fitness of teammate Travis Head. He confirmed that the batter is fine and will be available for the next match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25, to be played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Travis Head reportedly suffered a groin injury on Day 5 of the third Test match, which took place at the Gabba in Brisbane. The batter looked in pain and even was seen limping while walking, raising a lot of speculations about his availability for the next game of the series.
Travis Head missing the next game would’ve been a big blow for the Australia National Cricket Team, especially with the kind of performances that he has put in the series. The batter has slammed two centuries and one fifty in the three games so far.
Travis Head was one of the main reasons why the Australia National Cricket Team made a comeback in the series. He slammed a magnificent century in Adelaide, helping Australia win by 10 wickets, and then followed it up with innings of 152 runs in Gabba, which helped Australia post a total of 445 runs.
Trav, he’ll be fine. It’s a bit of a tight quad, he’ll be fine for Melbourne – Pat Cummins
The batter, after that match, mentioned that he was fine and will be needing some rest to regain full fitness. Now, skipper Pat Cummins too has confirmed his availability for the fourth game, saying that he is fine and will be playing the next match of the series.
“Trav, he’ll be fine. It’s a bit of a tight quad, he’ll be fine for Melbourne.” Pat Cummins told reporters.
The third Test match between Australia and India ended in a draw. It’s fair to say that was the Pat Cummins-led side’s game to win but rain played the spoilsport and also, India batted well, credits to KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Akash Deep, and Jasprit Bumrah, for avoiding the follow-on and drew the game.
Momentum, don’t really care about. Would have been nice to win – Pat Cummins
With the way India drew the game, the momentum surely will be with them going into the Boxing Day Game, which will be played from 26th December. But Pat Cummins doesn’t care about momentum as he said that he wanted to win the win.
He also admitted that their plan to bundle big India before follow-on didn’t work. He also credited India for the way they batted. Speaking to ABC Sport, he explained:
“Momentum, don’t really care about. Would have been nice to win, but you know, really happy with how everyone’s placed. Really big shame to see, you know, Joshy go, but outside of that, really happy with how the week went.
“Yeah, yeah, very happy. Yeah, it didn’t work out. You know, the ball was like a bar of soap for those last five overs, so there wasn’t a lot of pace left in the wicket or bounce or spin. Aways up against it, they batted pretty well. And I love the intent this afternoon to try and force something to happen.”
Definitely the intent to try and find a way to win – Pat Cummins om Australia’s approach on Day 5 at Gabba
Pat Cummins also talked about Australia’s approach on Day 5, saying that they wanted to find a way to win. He lauded his batters for the way they played and also revealed that Josh Hazlewood will be missing the entire series. He added:
“Yeah, definitely the intent to try and find a way to win. You know, the weather’s pretty hard to predict, but yeah, no, absolutely kind of mapped out this morning. If the weather got lucky and it missed us, how do we try and find ourselves in a position to, you know, have enough time to try and take 10 wickets?
“So it didn’t pan out that way, but, you know, even the batting unit, I thought it was brilliant how they walked out there with intent and tried to get us a bit of a lead as quickly as we can. And then, yeah, in terms of Joshie, yeah, obviously not ideal. He’ll miss the series. Yeah, take a few weeks to recover and then build up again from there. So I’m not sure exactly what that looks like, but it’ll be at least this series.’
Also read: ICC World Test Championship Points Table, WTC Table After IND vs AUS 3rd Test 2024