Cummins was speaking at the MCG on Sunday ahead of the first ODI of the summer against Pakistan, which will be his first international appearance since the T20 World Cup in June, after he missed the tour to Great Britain in September.

Cummins said he had been keeping an eye on the scores from Mackay and stressed the quartet were likely to get another chance to impress in the second four-day game at the MCG starting on Thursday. But he added that the Australia A games are not the best and final in terms of selection for the first Test.

“I think that’s like one last bit of information,” Cummins said. “It’s never as clean as a bat off. Some of these guys have only played a few matches of Shield cricket and then you have other guys who have played over a decade.

“The last couple of weeks, is that really important? It has some importance, but it’s not going to guide 100% of the decision. So that’s the last part of the decision.

“In some respects it’s a lot of pressure on the last two matches, which, like it or not, is probably what you get in Test cricket anyway. So I suppose, again, whoever gets picked, they’ve yet experienced as much pressure as they could in a Test debut, so that means they’re pretty well placed.”

Cummins was not worried about having to leave the decision quite late, as Australia’s current selection panel and management group have preferred to give players more certainty in recent times.

“I don’t think it’s a new problem,” Cummins said. “The good thing is if you say the one batting role that we’re looking at, whoever is selected, they get behind by a lot of runs at the start of the year, you’d think, and they The reality is, that you try to make a debut as comfortable as you can. But it’s a test debut. So yeah, it’s not like they’re going to wake up one morning and find out they’re playing, they’re definitely going to know that a week or so.

“You could,” Cummins said. “Again, maybe when we start discussing who’s on the side, then you start looking at the batting order.

“Ronnie [Andrew McDonald] and I’ve said it quite a bit, we don’t think where you bat is that important. You’re trying to figure out how the batting order as a whole is going to work best. And I don’t think anyone should be super protective about a certain place.”

Meanwhile, Cummins said he felt physically as fresh as he had in a long time after skipping the T20I and ODI tour of Great Britain to undergo a significant training block in Sydney to get ready for the summer. He also explained his decision not to play a Shield game before the first Test.

“The one that I would have had to play here in Melbourne, I probably would have had to start bowling about two or three weeks earlier,” he said. “So we kind of made the decision to have an extra two weeks to build up in the gym and prioritize that. I feel like I’ve been doing that for quite a while now and then I feel like the ODIs will give me a good lead in and the two weeks before the first Test we’ll obviously make sure we do lots of red balls and center wickets to try and replicate that.”

Cummins said he was unsure whether he will play all three ODIs against Pakistan. He confirmed he would play the first two, but it appears he will miss the final game in Perth to avoid a return cross-country flight, a week before he was due to make the same trip to Perth- the test.

If he misses the Perth match, it will mean Australia will have to find a captain, with ODI vice-captain Mitchell Marsh missing the series while on paternity leave.

Smith and Josh Hazlewood have both led the ODI team in the past, but there is a possibility that both may also be rested from the Perth tour for the same reasons as Cummins.