{"id":154315,"date":"2021-11-03T01:15:09","date_gmt":"2021-11-03T02:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=154315"},"modified":"2021-11-03T06:57:43","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T06:57:43","slug":"ashes-blow-as-aussie-opener-unlikely-to-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=154315","title":{"rendered":"Ashes blow as Aussie opener 'unlikely' to play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victoria coach Chris Rogers has all but confirmed young gun batsman Will Pucovski<\/a> will be unavailable for the opening Ashes Test.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old right-hand opener suffered a concussion during a training session last month, and symptoms are lingering.<\/p>\n

Pucovski has battled ongoing concussion issues for years, and Victoria has ruled him out of this week's Sheffield Shield game.<\/p>\n

Rogers told media it's unlikely Pucovski will be available for selection for the Ashes opener at the Gabba from December 8.<\/p>\n

"He hasn't quite recovered as well as hoped for this game from the concussion," Rogers said.<\/p>\n

\"Will<\/p>\n

"In discussions with the medical team and national selectors, it was felt that we'd give him a bit more time before he's selected to play for Australia.<\/p>\n

"All the people in these conversations understand we've got an immense talent on our hands and we want him to be playing in three to five to 10 years. These are the decisions we're going to make in his best interests and hopefully we can set him up to play for a long career.<\/p>\n

"No doubt it's a setback \u2013 I'd say now it's unlikely he'll play in the first Test. If we do play a third Shield game in mid-November, and there might be a second XI game for Victoria as well, that might prepare him for one of the matches in the middle of the Ashes series.<\/p>\n

"That's the best-case scenario at the moment."<\/p>\n

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Pucovski made his Test debut last summer before a shoulder injury forced him out of the team.<\/p>\n

He was expected to be named as David Warner's opening partner for the Ashes, but his latest concussion leaves a void at the top of the order.<\/p>\n

Usman Khawaja has put himself right back in the selection frame<\/a> with consecutive centuries for Queensland, while Marcus Harris is the other opener<\/a> being mentioned as a potential Warner partner.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong> clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victoria coach Chris Rogers has all but confirmed young gun batsman Will Pucovski will be unavailable for the opening Ashes Test. The 23-year-old right-hand opener […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154315"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=154315"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154317,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154315\/revisions\/154317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=154315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=154315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=154315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}