Pat Cummins reaches out to Cam Bancroft, Marcus Harris after snubbings from Test squad

It is not common for an Australian Test captain to feel obligated to call players who narrowly miss selection, with Pat Cummins bucking another trend as skipper.

Pat Cummins has reached out to Marcus Harris and Cameron Bancroft to reassure them they are not the forgotten men of Australian cricket.

It is not common for an Australian Test captain to feel obligated to call players who narrowly miss selection but Cummins phoned both men with consoling words after they failed to make the squad for next week’s Test against the West Indies in Adelaide.

The duo would have been shattered to miss out on several fronts – the opening spot they were chasing will be filled by Steve Smith while Cameron Green will slot in the middle order and Matt Renshaw is the reserve batsman.

Bancroft was right in the thick of the race to enter the side. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

Harris also missed out on selection. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

Those calls would have placed the duo fourth and fifth on the opening batsman pecking order following the retirement of David Warner, leaving their international futures very much in doubt.

They will, however, get a further chance to make the team when Usman Khawaja retires but that moment could still be years away given he has been in career best form despite being 37.

It is unknown whether Cummins told Bancroft there was no lingering animosity towards him after the bowling unit flatly rejected a claim he made in an interview that it was “self-explanatory’’ whether they knew about the use of sandpaper in the Cape Town Test in 2018.

But selection chairman George Bailey, in announcing the team on Wednesday, stressed there was no issues with Bancroft among current team members.

Originally published as Pat Cummins reaches out to Cam Bancroft, Marcus Harris after snubbings from Test squad