Cummins is expected to be out of action for almost a year

Australia pace bowler Pat Cummins is set to have his bowling action reassessed after suffering a lower back stress fracture that will rule him out of most of the 2012-2013 season, if not all of it.

Cummins, 19, revealed that he had booked a place at the Australian Institute of Sport, where his bowling action will be thoroughly examined to ensure no more incidents like this happen in the future.

This means that Cummins will not play in Australia’s home series against South Africa, Sri Lanka or the West Indies, while also not being able to travel with the squad when they tour India in February.

Cummins’ place in the the back-to-back Ashes series will also be in doubt since he may not be able to play any first-class cricket until this time next year.

Cummins revealed that there were plans to examine his bowling action in the past and admitted that due to the recent surge in Twenty20 Internationals he had played for Australia, it had allowed bad habits to start occurring when he bowled.

“We were talking about going down to the AIS, we were already booked in to have a look at my action while we had time. We’d been planning to do it for a while, just to see what it came up with, one thing I noticed was I might’ve been falling away a bit more than say a year ago. When I’m bowling with a red ball I try to swing it and when I’m swinging the ball everything’s going well. But when you’re bowling cross seamers with a white ball you kind of fall into bad habits maybe,” Cummins said.

Upon injuring his back, the Australian national selectors had hoped Cummins would be fit enough to play in the third Test against South Africa at Perth, but after undergoing further scans, it was revealed that Cummins would be out for almost a year.

Cummins had played with back soreness in the recently concluded Champions League Twenty20 (CLT20) and was included in the roster for the Sydney Sixers game against the Highveld Lions in the final of the tournament.

Australia’s physiotherapist Alex Kountouris noted that Cummins’ back issues did not look to be anything serious during the CLT20, and said: “He had a little bit of back pain towards the back end of the Champions League, which wasn’t a big concern, he played all the games and was training and was functioning okay. But because of his age and his history we decided to investigate it and unfortunately he’s got an early stage stress fracture of his spine, which is disappointing.”

However, Kountouris stated that Cummins was lucky that his injury had been caught in its early stages.

“The good news is we’ve got it nice and early, because we have had a high index of suspicion with him. Now we’re going to manage it early and expect to get a good outcome from it. He’s now going to start his rehab. We do expect him to miss most of the season, if not all of it. But he will come back and he’ll be fine once he gets back in to playing cricket again. Pat had a spine bone stress injury a few years ago but the current injury is new and in an entirely different part of the spine. We expect he will recover fully from this injury and will be closely monitored to determine his return to the playing field, but expect that he will miss most of the 2012-13 domestic cricket season,” Kountouris added.

Cummis knows that his latest injury setback is something he and the team management have to discuss in order to avoid it from occurring in the future again.

“I’ve got to sit down with the people that manage me and give them my thoughts as well, it’s a group effort. I probably wouldn’t have changed anything from the last few months. I thought I was bowling enough and not bowling too much. I got through 20 games in the last few months so it was playing every two or three days. The one thing with all young people is they’re more susceptible with injuries, you can’t really be too wrapped up in trying to pick and choose. If you’re ready to go you’ve got to go out there and play, and if you get injured that’s just what happens. It’s what’s on the schedule, so looking forward if it’s not the end of this summer hopefully the Champions Trophy in England and obviously the Ashes is a major goal. Certainly not ruled that out yet, hopefully I’ll be right for them,” Cummins said.

Cummins missed most of Australia’s season last summer as well after picking up a foot injury, and now that he will be out for almost a year, the pressure on the other pace bowlers in the Australian team to stay fit will severely increase.

Since Cummins will be out during Australia’s home series against Sri Lanka in December, it gives pace bowler Ryan Harris an opportunity to make his international comeback after undergoing shoulder surgery just over two months ago.