Pat Cummins hints at playing Sheffield Shield as build-up to Border Gavaskar Trophy | Cricket News
India will tour Australia later this year for the five-match Test series. Australian skipper Pat Cummins who has opted out of the white-ball tour to England and Scotland and has hinted that he will take part in the Sheffield Shield cricket first time since 2021 as part of preparation for the upcoming Border-Gavarskar trophy against India.
“Ronnie [coach Andrew McDonald] called me the other day and said we need to talk about this. I prefer to go a little bit fresher but play some cricket going in. So I’d say it’s either two or three ODIs, plus a Shield [game] or maybe just some Shield, maybe some NSW one-day stuff. I imagine kind of late October/early November will be when I start playing building up for the Tests,” Cummins said who plays for New South Wales in the tournament.
Australia played red-ball cricket last in January this year against West Indies. Apart from the five-match Test series against India Australia will also tour Sri Lanka in early 2025. The results of these seven Tests will play a pivotal role if Australia reaches the final of the World Test Championship (WTC).
Additionally, Australia has yet to beat India in a bilateral Test series since the 2014/15 series. India has won the previous four Border-Gavaskar series since 2017, twice at home (in 2016-17 and 2022-23) besides two horic series triumphs Down Under in 2018-19 and 2021-22. However, the Aussies trumped India in the second ICC World Test Championship final in mid-2023 to claim the title for the second cycle.
“I’m obviously going to tip Australia to win and I’m never going to tip against Australia. There will be a draw somewhere and there will be some bad weather somewhere, so I’m going to say 3-1 to Australia,” Ricky Ponting has given his prediction on the marquee tour on the ICC review recently.
“It’s going to be a competitive series and as I said I think Australia’s got a bit of a point to prove against India in Australia on the back of what’s happened the last the last two series here,” Ponting added.
