Australia tour of Pakistan: Pat Cummins expects ‘close to full strength squad’, everyone is really pumped

Australia will have close to a full squad in their tour of Pakistan, Test captain Pat Cummins has said. Cummins said that he is confident of “close to a full-strength” playing in the tour, which starts on March 3 and is scheduled to end on April 5.

“I think we’ll get close to a full-strength squad,” Cummins told reporters. “There is still a little bit of work to do. We have received a lot of information and it has been great. All the pre-tour security and biosecurity work has been done and it’s been fantastic.

“There are a couple of players still keen to get a bit more information but everyone is really pumped and feeling relatively comfortable. If anyone doesn’t make the tour it is absolutely okay, we will back them for sure.”

While Australia chief selector George Bailey had also said earlier that the team will take a full squad for the tour, Cummins’s fellow fast bowler Josh Hazlewood later said that he won’t be surprised if a few players refuse to travel.

“There’s a lot of things in place and there’s been a lot of work in the background by CA and the ACA. So the trust is quite high there from the players, but there’d certainly be some concerns from the players and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them didn’t make the tour,” cricket.com.au quoted Hazlewood as saying.

“And that’s very fair. People will discuss it with their families … and come up with an answer and everyone respects that,” he added.

Australia is set to tour Pakistan for a full-fledged series comprising of three Tests, three ODIs, and one T20I. The three-Test matches are scheduled in Karachi (March 3-7), Rawalpindi (March 12-16), and Lahore (March 21-25), while Lahore will host the four white-ball matches from March 29 to April 5.