Thaindian News

Sydney, Jan 22 (IANS) Australian teenaged pace sensation Patrick Cummins’ dream of playing in the Indian Premier League has taken a dent after Cricket Australia (CA) announced a three-year plan to protect the 18-year-old from further injuries.

Cummins, who is sidelined with a stress-related heel injury, is hopeful of touring the West Indies in March.

“The West Indies is a massive tour for us and obviously I want to make that my No.1 goal,” Cummins was quoted as saying by Fox Sports Sunday.

Australia’s team performance manager Pat Howard has taken the help of fitness and medical experts to come with a three-year-plan. Howard has drawn up a plan that will ease the workload on the young pacer and nurse him through the initial years.

“He said because I was pretty young I was more at risk of getting injuries. It’s just about managing workloads. Obviously I can’t play every game. It’s about what games I can play. I’ll see how I go. They think about 70 per cent of games this year, my body will be able to cope with. Then 85 per cent next year and 95 per cent the following year.

“A lot of that comes down to me getting older and doing a lot of gym work.”

Cummins decimated the South African batting line-up in his debut Test match, claiming 6-79 in Johannesburg.

Howard felt that young pacers like Cummins and James Pattinson, who is also nursing an injury after an impressive show in the first two Tests against India, should not be playing every game and their workload should be properly managed.

“We can’t expect Pat to play all the time,” Howard said. “It’s about getting Pat from the age he is now to the age of James Pattinson.

“These guys are very, very young. We expect some injuries over time, but we’re going to try to minimise them to the best of our ability by managing the workload.”