Australian Pace Trio Of Cummins, Starc & Hazlewood On Track To Play In Nine Consecutive Tests?

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Australian pace trio of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood looks to be on track to feature in nine consecutive Test matches after playing in all three matches against Pakistan.

After three successive Tests at home against Pakistan, Australia will host West Indies in two Tests later this month before visiting Trans-Tasman neighbours New Zealand for two more Tests to round off their summer.

So, the senior pace trio are likely to play in nine Tests on the trot, having also featured in the last two Tests of Ashes series in 2023. The trio played three of the five Ashes Tests in England last year.

Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc have appeared in 28 Tests together as a pace trio, but it is only the second time that they have played five successive Tests together, as per ESPNCricinfo.

Their previous five successive appearances came in 2020-21, first playing a home series of four Tests against India from December 2020 to January 2021 then the first Ashes Test in December 2021.

This was made possible by a 11-month COVID-19 induced gap between their fourth and fifth Test. Now, the trio have managed to play together in a packed schedule of six months.

The head coach Andrew McDonald was surprised with the physical fitness of the trio after a heavy year featuring the ICC World Test Championship final, The Ashes and ICC Cricket World Cup in India.

The trio will be playing the first Test against West Indies from January 17 onwards at Adelaide and could also play their next three matches against WI and Kiwis without any break, confirmed the coach McDonald.

"There is nothing to indicate they will need a rest," McDonald said after the four-day win in Sydney as quoted by ESPNCricinfo. "They have got a little bit of a gap to the West Indies Test match.

"I could see pretty much an unchanged bowling line-up for Adelaide. It is probably something we have noticed, they have probably got better across the [Pakistan] series. In particular, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins. And Mitch Starc, I think his ball speed in this game was at its highest."

There were plans to keep pacers Scott Boland and Lance Morris ready for the first Test against Pakistan, anticipating that heavy workload would lead to some soreness and pain for the main pacers. But it never happened, causing Morris and Boland to be send back to the Big Bash League (BBL).

McDonald said that they had planned for reinforcements but all three Tests against Pakistan ending in four days helped the trio to be fresh for the subsequent match.

"In the background, we sort of plan for five-day Test matches, and if we were to go five days it is going to put immense stresses and strain onto the bowling unit. I think we got, not lucky, but in the first Test match in Perth, there was a shortened second innings for the bowling unit," said McDonald.

"That gives you the flexibility to be able to then push them a little bit harder throughout the Pakistan series. And we have always said that we plan in the background.

"The players want to play every Test match. That is really important. We want to pick the best Test team that we can at any particular time. So it is just striking that balance in how many games they can play without compromising, I suppose their long-term futures," he added.