Pat Cummins won’t return for ODI series after the death of his mother

Australia gets three ODI games to try and leave India with a trophy and Steve Smith will be in charge again.

Pat Cummins won’t join David Warner in returning to India for the three-match ODI series with Steve Smith to stay on as acting captain.

Cummins returned home half way through the Test series to be with his family as his mother Maria battled cancer. She passed away on the eve of the fourth match.

Australian coach Andrew McDonald confirmed Cummins, who was made ODI skipper late last year after the retirement of Aaron Finch, would be given time to grieve.

“Pat won‘t be coming back, he’s still taking care of what’s happened back home,” McDonald said.

“Our thoughts are with Pat and his family as they go through that grieving process.”

Cummins’ spot in the squad hasn’t been filled for the series which begins on March 17, but Nathan Ellis has come in for the injured Jhye Richardson.

Despite losing the Test series 2-1, McDonald took positives from the way his men rebounded after two ugly early defeats to win the third match before the series ended with a draw.

“I think it’s a good result if you are taking the last two Tests matches but what we set out to achieve here we weren’t quite able to achieve it,” he said.

“You can pin it back to Delhi where we were in control of that game and lost those eight wickets and pretty much the whole series shifted from there.

Steve Smith will keep the captaincy in India a. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

“I’m really impressed with the way the players rebounded after that little break and reset themselves. Indore was impressive and I felt like this game was another impressive performance, albeit it didn’t really go anywhere and sometimes the surface does dictate how the game pans out”.

“It’s a proud group and they’ll see it as a missed opportunity. Not many teams come here and get the opportunity like what was presented in Delhi and if it had been 1-1 all there who knows how the series goes from there so there’s a lot of what-ifs around that.

“We could only control what we did moving forward and the last two Tests we got some solid performances.”

Australia has earned a spot in the World Test Championship at The Oval in London in June on the back of sustained success but it presents an issue with many players set to be at the Indian Premier League in the lead-up, with the Ashes in England to follow.

“It will be squeezed,” McDonald admitted.

“Pretty much straight on the back of the IPL. We’ll head to England with plenty of time to prepare over there. We’ve got things that are almost in place for that. We’ll be well prepared.

“It’s the way of modern cricket. Dealing with short turnarounds, shifting from the format to format and the players know what they are in for when they are shifting from format to format and they are pretty good at it.”