Smith to lead Australia in final Test, Cummins stays home

Australia have confirmed Steve Smith will again captain the Test side in their Border Gavaskar Trophy series-concluding match in Ahmedabad.

Pat Cummins, who departed the tour following the second Test in Delhi last month, will remain in Sydney where his mother Maria is ill with breast cancer and is in palliative care.

Smith, who has insisted his time as full-time captain of Australia is over, filled in with distinction in the third Test in Indore to lead the visitors to a rare win in India, keeping their hopes of levelling the series in Ahmedabad this week alive.

No call has yet been made on Cummins' availability for the three-match ODI series that follows the Tests, with the fast bowler having also been appointed as 50-over captain last year.

But Jhye Richardson, who suffered a recurrence of a left hamstring injury while playing club cricket on the weekend, has been ruled out of the one-dayers and replaced by Nathan Ellis in the squad.

Richardson has been plagued by injuries in recent times, having missed the back-end of the recent KFC BBL due to this latest hamstring concern. He will now also miss Tuesday's Marsh One-Day Cup final against South Australia.

Smith, while stressing he did not still covet the permanent job, said he enjoyed captaining in Indore.

His field placements and use of the team's three spinners were astute, while he also reinforced the validity of the team's batting plans to the top-order mid-Test.

"My time is done. It's Pat's team now," Smith told reporters after the nine-wicket win. "I've obviously been able to stand in this week, obviously in tough circumstances with Patty going home. Our thoughts are still with him back home.

"But India is a part of the world I love captaining ... it's probably my favourite place in the world to captain.

"Every ball is an event and therefore can dictate what happens after, which is something that I really love and you've got to be ahead of the game.

"So I thought I did it well this week and it was good fun."

It is unclear who would lead the one-day team in Cummins' absence if he were to miss that series too.

Josh Hazlewood filled in as skipper when his pace partner missed an ODI during last summer's England series, but will sit out the campaign in India with an Achilles injury.

Smith and Alex Carey are the other squad members who have done it before. So has David Warner, but he remains barred from holding a formal leadership role.

Main image credit: BCCI/Sportzpics

Border-Gavaskar Qantas Tour of India 2023

February 9-13: India won by an innings and 132 runs

February 17-21: India won by six wickets

March 1-5: Australia won by nine wickets

March 9-13: Fourth Test, Ahmedabad, 3pm AEDT

All matches broadcast live and exclusive on Fox Cricket and Kayo Sports

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Matt Kuhnemann, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Lance Morris, Todd Murphy, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul (vc), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat, Ishan Kishan, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Suryakumar Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat