The injury to Australia’s fast bowling is a reminder of the juggling act that comes before the India Tests

Australia’s pace-bowling depth is often talked about, and with good reason, but it is currently under scrutiny. The list of injured and absent from the limited tour of the UK has been long.

“A lot of our priorities will be focused on that,” said Andrew McDonald, Australia’s coach SEN last week. “You will see that from the managers of our players. [Sheffield] Shield cricket will go into the summer to ensure they are ready for the first Test.”

Starc will be part of the ODI series in England but will be carefully managed with the matches. Cummins stayed home to work on strength and conditioning. It would be a surprise if Hazlewood played more than three one-day games in a series spanning just 11 days, although the washed-out game in Manchester allowed for more time off.

“There aren’t many breaks in the calendar unless you make one,” Cummins said last month about missing the England tour. “The medical staff and the coaches and everybody thought this was a good opportunity to have a month or so to bowl with my body, then build up and hopefully be as fit as possible for the five Tests.”

The long list of injuries surrounding Australia’s pace bowlers is a reminder of the incredible resilience of Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood of late but it also won’t take much of a well-laid plan to unravel. Helped by the five-day Test last season, they played everywhere against Pakistan, West Indies and New Zealand as they played in the entire ODI World Cup, except for one game where Starc was rested.

Cummins has missed just one test due to injury since 2018; others were due to Covid and compassionate leave. Starc missed the three-match series against South Africa and India in early 2023 with a finger injury and was ruled out of the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston, but he has been around for a long time, tending to bowl through various injuries. Meanwhile, Hazlewood has come off a two-year spell between 2021-2023 where he played just three Tests to keep himself on the park without being rested at Headingley in last year’s Ashes.

Even the first reserve player, Boland, who boasts a Test average of 12.21, expected an opening to appear somewhere last season. “I expected to play at some point,” he said cricket.com.au. “The coaches and selectors were saying, ‘Maybe you’ll get a stage, so get ready’.

“It’s difficult, especially when my mind says ‘It’s seven tests, I’m going to face a certain stage’. But [the big three] they’re tough and they get the pitching teams out so quickly, that they don’t need as many breaks.”

For now, the injuries have been a disappointment to those involved in the England tour, and the selectors’ hesitant action to fill gaps, rather than the immediate concern of the India series, but that is the much-respected depth in Australia’s bowling stocks. may face a defining summer.