Pat Cummins dropped, Australia vs Sri Lanka, start time, team news, Michael Clarke

Michael Clarke dropped a bombshell on Monday morning, claiming he had heard captain Pat Cummins was to be sacked ahead of Australia’s World Cup match against Sri Lanka.

Clarke, who was critical of the decision to get rid of Alex Carey before the defeat to South Africa, made the astonishing claim while speaking on Sky Sports Radio’s Big Sports Breakfast show.

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“I heard last night that Pat Cummins won’t be selected for this game,” he said.

“We dropped our wicketkeeper… who is one of the most important people in your team. So he got a match and was dropped. Now they say we are going to let our captain down.

“So in two games our two most important players on a touring team are going to be left out. You don’t know your best XI before you get to a World Cup?

“If Alex Carey only gets one match, he shouldn’t be in India. They shouldn’t have taken it. If Pat Cummins is going to be sidelined and not captain the team, then you have picked the wrong captain.

Clarke also took aim at Australia earlier in the week for their “horrendous” preparation ahead of the World Cup, something he doubled down on ahead of the South Africa match.

“I heard the players say that our preparation was perfect. No, no, you’ve played enough cricket, but you haven’t used these games,” Clarke said.

“You haven’t picked your best players. You didn’t understand if we were going to bat first, field first. You didn’t decide who was playing where, you didn’t even choose your captain and let him lead some games of cricket. So come the World Cup semi-final [or] grand finale, he knows exactly what he does under pressure.

“Pat Cummins doesn’t direct enough games. He is in India, able to play but they rested him for one match.

Cummins spoke to the media on Sunday, admitting the five-time champions needed to “start winning and start winning quickly” to salvage their faltering World Cup campaign.

Australia lost their two opening matches, by six wickets against hosts India and by 134 runs against South Africa, their heaviest defeat in a World Cup.

Although they have the firepower of David Warner and Steve Smith, they have yet to post a total of 200.

“We’re obviously 0-2, so we need to start winning and start winning quickly,” Cummins said ahead of Monday’s clash against Sri Lanka in Lucknow.

“Every match now becomes almost like a final. You have to win almost all of them.

The numbers so far are bleak for Australia.

None of their batsmen made a half-century with Smith leading the way with 46 against India and Marnus Labuschagne equaling that modest mark in the rout of South Africa.

They were also hamstrung by their performance on the field. Against India, Virat Kohli was dropped at 12th over before making a match-winning 85.

Had the catch been successful, India, chasing just 200 to win, would have hovered at 20-4.

The situation got worse against South Africa where five chances were missed. Needing 312 to win, Australia collapsed to 70-6 and were reduced to a damage limitation exercise in a bid to shore up their run rate.

Clarke said the state of the pitch will be key in determining Australia’s fate.

“I need to see what field we are playing on,” he said.

“If we play on the same wicket as the other day, I get extremely nervous. We need a brand new wicket…we played the match two days ago against South Africa.

“There’s a pitch that looks pretty well prepared nearby. If we play on this pitch, I think we will definitely win.

“If we want to play on the used wicket that we have played on before, it will be a very difficult challenge for us because it will spin and it will be very two-paced and Sri Lanka and all the subcontinents will play better in these conditions. We have struggled a lot under these conditions for a long time now.

Australia are second from bottom of the 10-team table, behind the Netherlands and supported only by Afghanistan.

On Monday, they will face winless Sri Lanka, who had no problem scoring runs – 326 against South Africa and 344 in the match against Pakistan.

Unfortunately for the 1996 champions, they conceded a World Cup record 428 to the Proteas, while Pakistan’s chase to win by six wickets was the most successful chase in the tournament’s history.

Sri Lanka won 3-2 in a five-match series against Australia at home in June last year.

However, Australia secured a comfortable 87-run victory when their teams met in the 2019 World Cup at The Oval.

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