Pat Cummins set to miss New Zealand T20Is amid fitness concerns ahead of Ashes

Pat Cummins is reportedly set to miss Australia's upcoming T20I tour of New Zealand as Cricket Australia looks to manage the workload of its Test captain ahead of a crucial home Ashes campaign later this year.

The 32-year-old pacer, who also skipped the recent white-ball series against the West Indies and South Africa, will undergo routine scans on his back after experiencing tightness since returning from the Caribbean last month, according to a report from CODE Sports.

Cricket Australia's decision to rest Cummins underlines its focus on preserving his fitness for the five-Test Ashes series, beginning in Perth later this year. Despite sitting out the New Zealand tour, Cummins is still expected to feature in October's ODI series against India and line up for at least one Sheffield Shield fixture with New South Wales in the lead-up to the Ashes.

Speaking on Thursday, fellow fast bowler Josh Hazlewood confirmed that Australia's Test quicks will follow different preparation schedules leading into the marquee series.

"The Test guys will play more than one Shield game," Hazlewood told reporters. "They'll probably play two or three, but everyone's on different programs. I used it last year and found it very beneficial - time on the field, multiple spells in a day, it's hard to replicate at training.

"It felt like over the last 12 months the best way for me to go about it is just keep ticking over, keep playing, not having too long off bowling. If I can just stay up there at match intensity as long as I can, that's the best way forward."

Australia's pace depth is already under scrutiny ahead of the 2025/26 summer. Fringe quicks Lance Morris, Spencer Johnson and Ben Dwarshuis are all battling injuries, leaving Cummins, Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland shouldering the responsibility of leading the attack in the Ashes.

Cummins' absence from the New Zealand T20Is also comes after a standout campaign at the 2024 T20 World Cup, where he became the first bowler to claim back-to-back hat-tricks in T20I cricket, achieving the rare feat against Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Overall, the right-arm pacer has taken 66 wickets in 57 T20 internationals at an economy rate of 7.44.

Australia's three-match T20I tour of New Zealand begins on Wednesday, October 1.