Australian captain Pat Cummins will return home as the right-arm pacer is set to leave India suddenly in the middle of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after the completion of the second Test match in Delhi. With the Delhi Test ending prematurely, in just three days, there is a gap of 10 days before the third Test in Indore, which starts on March 1.
According to a Newscorp report, Cummins will return home to Sydney to attend to a family illness. However, it isn’t a setback for Australia as the pacer is set to return to India in a couple of days, in time for the third Test. The report stated that along with Cummins, leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson will return to India as well, who had left after the Nagpur Test for the birth of his first child.
Australia are having a disappointing outing in the ongoing four-match Test series having lost two Tests in a span of 16 sessions. While India dominated the series opener in Nagpur, winning the game by an innings and 132 runs, Australia were ahead of the game in Delhi after a couple of days of play, however, they conceded the advantage in a shocker of a morning session on Day 3 losing eight wickets for 28 runs.
Australia managed just 113 runs as the batters paid price for playing the sweep shot rather excessively on a track that had low bounce. Steve Smith, Matt Renshaw, Usman Khawaja, Alex Carey and skipper Cummins all fell prey to the attempted sweep shot as Ravindra Jadeja ran riot in the first innings.
The result took India, one step closer to a spot in the World Test Championship (WTC) final and even though Australia wouldn’t want to lose 4-0, but should they fail to win a single game in the series, they should be through to the summit clash irrespective, unless Sri Lanka beat New Zealand 2-0.
