Australia captain Pat Cummins is a doubt for the Ashes series due to his ongoing back injury and is expected to miss the opening Test in Perth against England.
Cummins last played during Australia's 3-0 Test series sweep of West Indies in July where pain initially flared up and he has been on the sidelines since, with scans indicating signs of lumbar bone stress.
The Ashes gets under way on November 21 and Cummins' absence would be a massive blow for Australia and their hopes of retaining the Ashes which they have held since 2018.
Cummins missed Australia's white-ball series against South Africa and New Zealand, with confirmation he will also miss this month's ODIs and the T20s at the end of October.
According to Australian outlet, , Cummins had a fresh scan last week and was told that while the stress "hot spot" was healing, it has not yet cleared up enough for him to bowl.
The setback will make it difficult for him to get up to speed for the tightly-scheduled Ashes series, which runs until January 8.
Steve Smith will almost certainly be the stand-in replacement captain to face Ben Stokes' side, with Scott Boland likely to take Cummins' place in the bowling attack alongside Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood.
Australia's pace bowler Mitchell Starc remains hopeful that Cummins will recover and joked that the media knows more about the situation than the players.
"You guys seem to have more knowledge about it than any other players, so how's Pat going?" Starc said.
"Obviously, Pat is still in his program, and has obviously got a few sets of eyes on him in his return.
"He's in good spirits and ultra positive as always. There are still some weeks to go before we get to Perth for the Test preparation, so we'll see where that lands. Hopefully, we see a lot of him through the summer."
Joe Root has warned England will hit Australia with something different in the Ashes series.
Stokes takes a 16-man squad to Australia for the five-Test series, from November 21 to January 8, with the objective of reclaiming the urn for the first time since 2015.
Root, England's all-time leading run-scorer, spearheads a batting line-up tasked with breaking Australia's dominance and firing the tourists to an historic victory down under.
"It's a big series like that against a side that have got a great record at home, especially against us previously," Root told SportNews News. "But I think it's the first time we can hit them with something slightly different.
"We're going out there with a different team, a different mentality, a different way of playing and have played some good cricket of late. Hopefully that stands us in good stead, and we can put across some really good performances and hopefully create some history."
All times UK and Ireland
