Australia

The 28-year-old Cummins, who has returned from India following postponement of Indian Premier League (IPL) and is quarantining here, added that bowling on Indian pitches is a challenge to which a pacer has to adjust. "My opinion is a bit different to a lot of batters around the world. Sometimes they (Indian pitches) are spin-friendly.

With no warm-up matches in England against county teams, India will prepare for the five-Test series with a couple of intra-squad matches. They have a one-and-a-half-month break between the World Test Championship (WTC) final against New Zealand and the start of the five-Test series against England during which they will prepare with intra-squad warm-up games. The 24-member squad will just be enough to make two sides for these matches.

Former Australia batsman Michael Hussey, also the batting coach of Chennai Super Kings (CSK), said on arrival from India that it will be difficult to host the tournament in India as cricket boards will be reluctant to send their teams to the country reeling under the pandemic.

Tennis Australia, country's top tennis body, issued a statement in this regard on Monday after media reports said the tournament would be forced offshore due to federal government's prediction that international borders will stay closed until mid-2022.

The Australian government has suspended all flights from India till May 15, leaving around 9,000 Aussies, including cricketers and former cricketers in IPL, stranded in the country that is reeling under the pandemic with fresh Covid-19 cases between 3.5-4 lakh being reported daily.

The federal government has announced that approximately 2,050 athletes and support staff travelling to Japan for the delayed Olympics and Paralympics will be considered a priority group in the troubled vaccine rollout, Xinhua reports. Greg Hunt, the Minister for Health, said that vaccines would safeguard Australians traveling to Tokyo in July and August.

"They have travelled there privately," Morrison is quoted as saying by The Guardian. "This wasn't part of an Australian tour. They're under their own resources and they'll be using those resources too, I'm sure, to see them return to Australia in accordance with their own arrangements," he further said.

This is the third time he is winning the prestigious medal. He was pipped by David Warner by one vote last year.The right-handed batsman made the most runs for Australia across all formats in the voting period with 1,098 at an average of 45.75. The effort was built on four half centuries and four centuries.

"The Aussies pulling out of the tour of SA is a huge worry for the game...Would they have pulled out of a tour to India is the question??!!" Vaughan said in a tweet. "It's so important in these times that the big three do everything they can to help out those without the financial clout ...#JustSaying," he added.

"Due to the public health situation in South Africa, which includes a second wave and a new variant of the virus, and following extensive due diligence with medical experts, it has become clear that travelling from Australia to South Africa at this current time poses an unacceptable level of health and safety risk to our players,