Australia announces squad for 4th Ashes Test; Two in-form players ruled out

Cricket Australia, on Tuesday, December 23, named the updated squad for the fourth Ashes 2025-26 Test, which is scheduled to start on Friday, December 26 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne.

Interestingly, Australia will be without Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon for the remainder of the series. Spinner Todd Murphy has been called up alongside fast bowler Jhye Richardson as their replacements. 

Murphy received the call-up ahead of Matt Kuhnemann and Corey Rocchiccioli to replace Nathan Lyon, with the veteran off-spinner expected to undergo surgery on his injured hamstring. 

On the other hand, Steve Smith, who missed out on the Adelaide Test, will return as the stand-in captain pending his recovery from the inner-ear issues. Australia head coach Andrew McDonald, who attended the media conference, has stated that Pat Cummins will not take part in the remainder of the series.

"He (Cummins) won't play any part in the rest of the series. That was a discussion that we had a long time out around his return. Yeah, we were taking on some risk. We've now won the series, and that was the goal,” Andrew McDonald told reporters on Tuesday.

"To position him for further risk and jeopardise him long term is not something that we want to do. Pat's really comfortable with that. If he had any setback in the build-in as well, we would have shut him down straight away,” he added.

"Everything went really smoothly, and full credit to him, the medical team and to navigate through that risk profile, to get him back and take six wickets in that game and nail the Ashes series was incredibly pleasing for everyone associated with that,” he concluded.

Australia squad (fourth Test only): Steve Smith (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Todd Murphy, Michael Neser, Jhye Richardson, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster.

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Harry Brook (vc), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Matthew Fisher, Will Jacks, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Josh Tongue.

Stay updated with the latest cricket news, match insights, and exclusive updates at BetBarter and download the BetBarter app to start betting today!