Pat Cummins will be rested from the last Twenty20 against Pakistan as Australia turn one eye towards the first Test at the Gabba.
The Aussies flew from Canberra to Perth on Wednesday without Cummins, who was sent back to Sydney to recover and prepare for red-ball cricket.
It’s expected he will play in next week’s Sheffield Shield match for NSW against Western Australia at the SCG, alongside Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Steve Smith and David Warner.
It will mark his only long-form hit out before the November 21 Test, with the team set to arrive in camp in Brisbane on Sunday week.
“It’s a little bit of recovery and preparing for the Test match,” Langer said.
“We’ve got so much cricket on and he plays a lot of it so we’ve got the opportunity for him not to take the long flight to Perth.”
Billy Stanlake would be expected to come into Australia’s team, while Sean Abbott could also be called upon as an extra quick depending on the surface.
Regardless, Cummins’ five-match stint in Twenty20 colours marked his biggest run in the format since the 2012 T20 World Cup.
Starc will also likely finish the week with five T20s to his name in the space of a fortnight, after missing a game last week for his brother’s wedding.
The difference has been notable for the Australians.
With their bowling attack at full strength, neither Pakistan or Sri Lanka have been able to score at more than 7.5 an over against the Aussies in any of the five games.
Both Cummins and Ashton Agar have gone at less than a run a ball for the start of the summer, while Starc has only gone at a tick above that rate.
And Langer has vowed to try and keep the same approach for T20 series in New Zealand, South Africa and England before home series against the West Indies and India next year.
“In the past we have used these opportunities to rest some of those guys,” Langer said.
“But we need to get better at it, it’s something that is a priority for Australian cricket. So therefore you want to play your best players as often as you can.
“We’re playing a really good defensive game. In T20 I’ve thought for seven or eight years that how you’re bowling unit plays and how you field is really important.
“We’re working to build all our bowling stocks so they are able to do those jobs for us. We’re really lucky, we’ve got great depth of squad.”
© AAP
Build your own fantasy cricket team and put it to the test with Draftstars daily fantasy competitions. Pick your match, pick your team and watch the points roll in to take out cash prizes on each match. What are you really gambling with? Set a deposit limit.
The mammoth rise of Jake Fraser-McGurk - his enormous potential and the destructive shot-making that he possesses makes him a very tempting option.
Marcus Stoinis produced his first IPL century and it was a beauty. He went 6, 4, 4, 4 to finish off the Lucknow Super…
The Aussie needed every centimetre of his height and reach to reel that one in!
Royal Challengers Bengaluru needed 21 off the final over...but after three sixes, a caught and bowled and a run out, Mitchell Starc's Kolkata had…
Test great Steve Smith is to play for Washington Freedom in the second season of Major League Cricket as the Australian influence in the…
Nathan Lyon has revealed his disappointment that Australia's cricket chiefs have prevented him from playing his first full season of county cricket in England…
