Australia captain Pat Cummins said Tuesday that cricketers were “not robots”, with his country’s T20I team struggling against a second-string Indian side in the ongoing five-match series, Australia lost the first two T20Is to trail 0-2 in the series.

Australia rested most of their World Cup-winning players and even out of the seven players who stayed back in India for T20Is, Cricket Australia has called back six of them for workload issues. Cricket Australiaconfirmed that Ben McDermott, Josh Philippe, and Chris Green will travel to India to bolster Matthew Wade and co.

IND v AUS 2023: Australia make wholesale changes to squad for remaining three T20Is against India

With a busy home summer of cricket looming, including Test series against Pakistan and the West Indies, Cummins acknowledged the burden on the players, some of whom have been playing in India since September.

“They’re humans, they’re not robots. Putting everything into a World Cup and then playing a couple of days later — I probably don’t begrudge them if they’re not at 100 percent. These are still games for Australia and it’s great that these tours do provide opportunities for some of the younger guys, or guys who might not be in the first eleven. I think these are important tours and you can get a lot out of them,” Cummins told reporters at the SCG.

The third T20I between India and Australia will be played in Guwahati on November 28, 2023.

(AFP inputs)