'We are getting older' - McDonald addresses 'misconception' about big three missing ODIs

Australia coach Andrew McDonald says there is a "misconception" around Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc's absence from the upcoming ODI tours of Pakistan and Bangladesh conceding Australia's aging fast bowlers need to be managed carefully ahead of a monster 2027 schedule.

The trio were notable absences from Australia's ODI squads for the white-ball tours that run from May 30 to June 21. All three missed the first half of the IPL due to differing injury issues, while Cummins and Hazlewood will play in the IPL playoffs which overlap with the start of the Pakistan tour.

But they won't play a part in the ODI matches in June when the IPL has finished while Cummins and Hazlewood will also miss the T20I series against Bangladesh, with Starc no longer available after retiring from T20I cricket.

Australia do not have any international cricket between June 21 and August 13 when they begin a run of 20 Tests (possibly 21 if they reach the WTC final), nine ODIs and five T20Is across four continents in 12 months prior the ODI World Cup in South Africa and Zimbabwe which begins in October 2027.

Those international matches will actually be played in nine-and-a-half of those months given the IPL will also run from mid-March to the end of May in 2027. All three men are committed to playing for Australia at least until the end of the 2027 World Cup, by which time Starc will be 37, Hazlewood will be 36 and Cummins will be 34.

The trio have played just one ODI together since the 2023 World Cup final and are unlikely to play much white-ball cricket together until next year's World Cup, with McDonald explaining that they were being carefully looked after.

"You look at our fast bowling cohort to get to 2027, I think people look at the immediate games in front of them and go, okay, well why aren't they playing there?" McDonald told reporters before departing for Pakistan.

"But if you actually work back from 2027 and look what we've got coming up, this is the last significant break that we get to be able to invest into their bodies to set themselves up to get all the way through 2027. So we are planning for them to be there in 2027. I think there needs to be a lot of trust in what we're doing to be able to get them there. It's going to be a significant challenge.

"We have done this before, in 2023. That was 19 Tests, so this is two more. The biggest difference there is we're four years older, so that creates another layer and another challenge within that.

"I think there's almost a misconception that the players are sort of picking and choosing as to where they play and which series they play in. These decisions are made around the management of what we have coming up within the schedule, and they don't choose that. We work with them on it.

"Those players want to play. We just don't feel like it's the best time for them to play, fill that extra month up, and then we actually start chasing our tails a little bit as we go into what we know we've got coming up. So I just want to dispel that sort of narrative out there around players picking and choosing."

It is understood there was initially some thought of pushing the big three through the ODI series in Pakistan and Bangladesh on the back of the IPL given Cummins had only played one match - the Adelaide Test in December - between last July and May due to his back injury, while Hazlewood did not feature from mid-November to mid-April because of hamstring and Achilles injuries. Starc, meanwhile, had a huge workload during the Ashes but did not play between late January and early May after suffering shoulder and elbow issues from diving in the field during the BBL.

But it was decided by Australia's medical and strength and conditioning staff for them to rest post the IPL. They will undergo strength training and then a long, progressive build of red-ball loads in the month leading into the two-Test series against Bangladesh in Darwin and Mackay in mid-August.

While their absences on medical grounds make perfect sense, missing international games after playing in the IPL during their CA contracted rest period before another six-week rest period looms following the Bangladesh white-ball tour appears untimely given the simmering angst around the contractual arrangements of Australia's best players.

Cummins had previously spoken on the "tension point" surrounding the Bangladesh Tests costing Australian players the chance to play in the Hundred.

Cummins has since reaffirmed his commitment to playing for Australia for the next few years, specifically Test cricket, alongside playing in the IPL. He remains the ODI skipper but has only played two ODIs since winning the 2023 World Cup and has also not played a T20I since June 2024.

Australia are planning for him to lead the 2027 World Cup campaign but there is a chance he may not play or captain many games leading in, depending on what his body is capable of handling on the back of his significant back injury.

"Pat's still invested in the one-day team," McDonald said. "It is just that we choose not to play him for the benefit of his body, and even on the back of what recently happened around his back injury, we know that that probably surprised us, so we know that we need to really make sure we manage him well to get through that, and to have the opportunity to bring that group together for 2027, and that's going to have some incredible complexities to it."

An added complexity beyond the relentless 2027 international schedule is the IPL. Cummins and Starc both skipped the IPL in 2023 when it fell in a 10-week window between the four-Test tour of India and a tour of England which including a WTC final and five Ashes Tests.

In 2027, the IPL will fall in the same window but this time Australia have five Tests in India between January and March, followed by the one-off 150th Anniversary Test in Melbourne in mid-March, before the England tour begins in June.

Cameron Green was Australia's only current multi-format player who took on the entire IPL in 2023 in between those international commitments. Hazlewood played a handful of games at the back-end as an injury replacement having missed the India Test tour through injury. Green lost his place in the Test side by the end of the Ashes and lost his ODI place during the 2023 World Cup and has since noted the exhaustion he felt at the end of the 2023 schedule.

Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood, Green, Travis Head and potentially Josh Inglis, who looms as a likely Test tourist to India and England as a specialist batter and reserve wicketkeeper, will have some decisions to make around their IPL availability next year. Those decisions could cause tensions with the BCCI and their IPL franchises given what happened when the three fast bowlers were late arrivals to the IPL this year due to CA's injury management.

"That's going to be the biggest challenge," McDonald said. "How do we get the players through that demand? How do we manage them, in particular our fast bowlers. I don't know whether I can say this publicly, because they might have a crack at me, but we are getting older.

"So that's going to create some different management challenges. They've been incredibly robust, a lot of those players, and then a few had a few recent hiccups, so it's something that we need to invest a lot of time into, and equally the batters."

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