Canberra: Australia captain Pat Cummins has been ruled out of the first Ashes Test due to a back injury, with Steve Smith set to lead the side in his absence.

The Australia captain has been sidelined with a back stress injury since July and had earlier this month said he was "less than likely" to feature in the first Test against England in Perth starting November 21.

"We've run out of time," head coach Andrew McDonald told reporters here.

"We sort of flagged this a week or so ago that it would take sort of four plus weeks to get him up and running and we've run out of time, unfortunately, but really optimistic and hopeful for the second Test match.

"We've grappled with it for a little while. The nature of the injury is that you never know and you're sort of taking it a day by day," he

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