Australia skipper Pat Cummins remained tight-lipped over the playing XI of his team for the first Ashes Test against England, starting June 16 in Birmingham.

England unveiled their playing XI for the Edgbaston Test two days ahead of the series opener. However, Cummins, who led his side to the WTC title last week by defeating India in the final at The Oval, kept his cards close to his chest.

The main headache for Australia now is that fast bowler Josh Hazlewood is available for selection after missing the WTC final. Hazlewood is competing for a place in the tourists’ bowling attack with left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc.

“We do have a team but we will announce it tomorrow, mainly because we haven’t got around to telling all our squad,” said Cummins in a pre-match press conference.

“The big news from last week is Josh Hazlewood is now available.”

Australia topped the points table in the 2021-23 cycle en route to their maiden WTC mace, having won 12 out of their 20 Tests.

Citing his team’s performance in the recently-concluded WTC cycle, Cummins said Australia have confidence in their own game and they won’t look to match the ultra-aggressive ‘Bazball’ approach adopted by England under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum’s regime.

“We’ve been amazing over the last 20 Test matches,” said Cummins. “And I think you’ve seen a pretty similar style in the way we’ve played, so we don’t want to lose sight of that.”

He added: “We’re big on playing what’s in front of you. Somewhere our batters might take 200 balls to get a hundred and that’s totally fine.”

(With AFP Inputs)