Australia’s Test and ODI captain Pat Cummins will miss the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026. The 32-year-old fast bowler from Sydney was included in Australia’s preliminary squad for the 20-team tournament
scheduled to take place across five venues in India and three in Sri Lanka but was replaced by Ben Dwarshuis on Saturday, January 31. Cummins’ absence from the second straight ICC white-ball tournament has weakened Australia’s bowling, and it also raised question marks over his participation in the cash-rich Indian Premier League.
In the IPL, Cummins is part of the Sunrisers Hyderabad team and leads them as well.
The legendary fast bowler interacted with reporters in Australia on Tuesday and gave a big update on his recovery and participation in the IPL 2026.
According to Cummins, who led SRH to the IPL final in 2024, he is hopeful about getting fit for IPL 2026 but added that his participation, and the extent of it, would depend on his back’s recovery.
“We’ll just be guided by my back,” he told AAP.
“We’ll have another scan in a few weeks, and if it’s good, then we’ll have a slow build-up. T20s are a little bit easier to get up for, that’s why I was so close to getting up for this World Cup.”
Speaking about his absence from the upcoming T20 World Cup, Cummins said that it is really unfortunate. He was expecting to get fit for the shortest format mega-event, but a ‘minor setback’ disrupted the plans.
“It was really unfortunate,” Cummins said.
“I feel pretty good, just a minor setback, and I just ran out of time, really. I’ll rest up for a few weeks and go from there.”
“We knew after the (Adelaide) Test match we were going to need somewhere between four and eight weeks to let the bone settle right down before then building back up. Initially, we thought it might only be four weeks, because I was feeling really good, but I just had a follow-up scan. They thought it probably needs another couple of weeks, so the timeline just became a bit too tight,” he added.
Cummins, who led Australia to the ODI World Cup title win in 2023, last played a T20I match on June 24, 2024, against India.
