Pat Cummins Steps Aside, Steve Smith to Lead Australia Again

Steve Smith Captaincy: Under the captaincy of Pat Cummins, Australia defeated India after 10 years and won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. In the last Test match played in Sydney, Australia defeated India by six wickets.

Even after this victory, there are signs of a change in the captaincy of the Australian team. Steve Smith is expected to get the captaincy of the Test team again.

Pat Cummins to Miss Sri Lanka Series

Australia has qualified for the final of the ICC World Test Championship with the Sydney Test win. Now it has to play the next Test series against Sri Lanka and Cummins will not be a part of the team in this series. He will spend time with his family.

Cummins has taken over the captaincy of Australia’s Test team after Tim Paine. During this time, he also captained the team in ODIs and T20s. Australia won the ODI World Cup under Cummins’ captaincy.

According to the report of the website ESPNcricinfo, after the Sydney Test match, Cummins has indicated that he will not play the two-match Test series against Sri Lanka as his wife is about to give birth to a second child. If Cummins is not with the team for this series, then Steve Smith can captain again. He is the vice-captain of the team.

He has captained four times in place of Cummins before. However, Cummins will remain the captain of the team for a long time. Cummins has said that he still has a lot of cricket left and it is cricket that has brought life into him.

Also Read: Women’s Team India Prepares for ODI Series Against Ireland

Focus on Preparation for the Final

Australia needed to win one of the two Test matches to be played against Sri Lanka apart from the Sydney Test to reach the final of the Test Championship. Since they have made it to the finals by defeating India, the series against Sri Lanka is no longer very important for them and they can certainly experiment with it. Australia will face South Africa in the final.

If we look at the series against India, the Australian batting did not perform well. This has been their weak link. The selectors can experiment with the batting order against Sri Lanka so that the team goes to the title match against South Africa fully prepared.