PERTH: Australia coach Andrew McDonald is hopeful skipper Pat Cummins will be able to play in the second Ashes Test and thinks it highly unlikely that quick Josh Hazle­wood will miss the whole series.

Paceman Cummins on Saturday rated himself a “half chance” to play the day-nighter against England in Brisbane from December 4 but McDonald was a little more positive than that when he spoke to reporters on Monday in Perth.

The coach said the 32-year-old had been scheduled to turn his arm in the nets on day four of the Perth Test on Monday but Australia’s stunning victory inside two days had forced him to put those plans back by a day.

“That hasn’t eventuated the way that we would have liked for Patty,” McDonald said. “Once we see him there again, we’ll be able to then join the dots as to what [a return] potentially looks like. It will be a genuine discussion leading into this test match and that may be one that eventuates late for us. A little bit to work through but it’s nearing completion, which is really, really positive.”

Hazlewood, another member of the three-man pace cartel that has served Australia for a decade, suffered a hamstring injury that ruled him out of the first Test.

“He’s working through first week of his rehab,” said McDonald. “Once he gets further down the track, then we’ll be in a position to communicate. He’ll be available at some point in the series.”

The third member of the trio, Mitchell Starc, stepped up with match figures of 10 for 113 in the first Test, a match dominated by pace bowling until Travis Head’s spectacular 123 won the day for the home side.

McDonald said opener Usman Khawaja, who suffered back spasms in Perth that prevented him from coming out at the top of the order for the second innings, had returned home for checks but was not guaranteed to start in Brisbane even if he was fit.

“It’s a long way out, a lot of information to gather between now and then, and hopefully Usman is fit and available for selection,” he said. “I think anytime you spasm, it’s a result of something going on in your back. So I think that further investigation is just due diligence around that.”

Head scored his match-winning century as a second-innings opener in his place and McDonald suggested it was a role the South Australian might reprise in future matches.

“I think it gave us a little bit of a lens potentially to the future in terms of adjusting batting orders in second innings,” he said. “You do it in one-day cricket, you front-end some of your innings if you know the back end is going to be difficult to chase down the runs.

“It’s a conversation that we have had. We’ve had a conversation around Travis opening the batting for a long period of time, and Trav has been on the record this week around that also.”

Pink ball Tests, particularly the evening sessions, are often dominated by pace bowling but McDonald said spinner Nathan Lyon would not be lightly discarded for the Gabba.

“It’s not something that we like doing,” the coach said. “If you look at Australian pink ball cricket in general terms, the middle sessions have been quite benign, and Nathan’s done a lot of work there.”

‘KEEP THE FAITH’

McDonald’s counterpart Brendon McCullum, meanwhile, urged England fans to “keep the faith” and said there would be no change in approach after their humiliating capitulation in the first Test as their cavalier attacking game, dubbed “Bazball” after the coach’s nickname, backfired.

Batting collapses coupled with Head’s sensational 69-ball century condemned England to yet another defeat in Australia.

Since last claiming an Ashes series in Australia 15 years ago, England have now lost 14 Tests, drawn two and won none in Australia, and were savaged back home following the defeat.

“Keep the faith,” the New Zealander McCullum said, asked by reporters what his message would be to England fans.

“Sometimes we get beaten and it looks pretty ugly, but there are times when having that type of mentality allows us to still believe in our abilities when we step out to play.

“There are times we don’t get it right, but we have to believe in what we believe in because it gives us the best chance. Just because we are one down in the series doesn’t change what we believe in. We have to stay calm, stay together, and plot our way back into this series, as we have done before.”

Meanwhile, the England Cricket Board said on Monday that Jacob Bethell, Matthew Potts and Josh Tongue — who did not feature in Perth — had been picked to play a day-night warmup match against the Australian Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra.

“The England Men’s Ashes Test squad have released three players Jacob Bethell, Matthew Potts and Josh Tongue to join the England Lions for their forthcoming two-day fixture against the Australian Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra,” ECB said in a statement.

The match will be a day-night fixture, played with the pink ball, starting on Saturday.

Australia head into the Brisbane Test with momentum and an imposing record in day-night matches, having won 13 of their 14 Tests played under lights, including all three against England.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2025