Cummins hopes to be fit for Adelaide Test against India

Melbourne: A heel injury might have ruled him out for bulk of the home Test series against India, but teen pace sensation Pat Cummins is in no mood to give up hope yet and said he is expecting to be fit in time for the fourth and final match of the rubber at Adelaide Oval.

The 18-year-old fast bowler is expected to be sidelined until late January with a heel injury that he picked up during his seven-wicket haul on debut against South Africa in Johannesburg last month. Although Cummins has set his eyes on the Twenty20 international against India on February 1 to mark his return to international cricket, he has not completely ruled out his availability for the final Test on January 24. "Cricket Australia are working closely with Cricket NSW with all my rehab and we`ll be working on it all summer. I`ll definitely be watching and looking forward to getting back as soon as possible," he said. "I`ll just rest it up for the next couple of weeks and early January I`ll start building up the running again and bowling so I`m right not too long after that.” "The one-day series and Twenty20 I`m still definitely looking at, and maybe even the back of the Tests. It`s only a couple more weeks," Cummins was quoted as saying by The Sydney Morning Herald. "I`ve never injured the foot before. It`s a one-off. The doc (doctor) says hopefully once it`s healed you`re at no more risk of suffering the injury than anybody else. I`ll be doing everything I can to be available for the last Tests." Talking about his injury, Cummins said he felt something wrong with his heel on the opening day of his debut Test. "Day one was when it first became an issue. It was bearable then but towards the end it started to get worse and worse," he said. "It was all in that last Test match, the damage. It was an accumulation of bowling a couple of days on a bruised heel and something that`s unavoidable.” "The original scan a few weeks ago was all clear, so we were pretty confident that it wasn`t there. But I found out (Tuesday) when it was still causing some pain and it wasn`t great news. It`s a stress fracture on the bone, but right on the minor side of the scale," the lanky pacer added. PTI