“Hopefully, I am in the starting XI”: Pat Cummins shows hesitancy in taking up Australia ODI captaincy role

Australian test captain Pat Cummins has said that he will be happy if he can be a regular part of Australia’s ODI playing 11.

The search for the new Australian ODI captain is on after the retirement of Aaron Finch. Finch recently led Australia in the 3-match ODI series against New Zealand, where the hosts completed a whitewash. Finch was going through a very rough phase in ODIs, and he took his retirement to focus on the T20 format.

There are quite a few potential candidates to take up the leadership role in ODIs. It is interesting that there is no concrete candidate to take up the role from Finch. Carey led Australia in West Indies when Finch was unavailable, but the majority of the senior players were absent from that tour.

Pat Cummins hesitant in taking up Australia ODI captaincy

Australian test captain Pat Cummins recently said that he is not interested in taking up the ODI captaincy of Australia as he believes that it won’t be feasible for a pacer to lead in all three formats of the game. Ahead of the Indian ODI series, Cummins has re-iterated the same fact.

Cummins said that the team is in no rush about naming the ODI captain of the side as Australia won’t play an ODI game before the T20 World Cup 2022. He said that there are quite a few senior players in the side, who can take up the captaincy role and insists that he will be happy if he can be a part of the playing eleven regularly.

“I think we are in no rush. We will chat through a few of those different options. Good thing is that we have plenty of options. There’s Steve Smith, Mitchell Marsh, Alex Carey, Josh Hazlewood, Adam Zampa,” Cummins said in an interview with ABC.

A true champion of the white-ball game.

Aaron Finch will retire from one-day cricket after tomorrow’s third and final Dettol ODI vs New Zealand, with focus shifting to leading Australia at the #T20WorldCup pic.twitter.com/SG8uQuTVGc

— Cricket Australia (@CricketAus) September 9, 2022

“We have got a lot of senior guys in the line-up, who could do a very good job. Hopefully, I am in the starting XI, and I will be happy.”

A few days ago, Cummins backed David Warner to be the new captain of Australia’s ODI squad. Even Warner has said that he will beready to do the role if the board approaches him.