Pat Cummins lifts the lid on Stuart Dew's surprise appearance for Ashes

Pat Cummins has moved to explain Stuart Dew's appearance in Australia's Ashes camp after the sacked Gold Coast Suns coach was spotted at Old Trafford on Monday. Dew was seen talking to Aussie players and looking on during training sessions ahead of the fourth Test against England at Old Trafford.

The former Gold Coast coach has not spoken publicly since his abrupt axing last Tuesday, after five-and-a-half seasons at the helm of the Suns. He instead booked an impromptu holiday to the UK and was spotted in full Australia kit at training.

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Speaking to the media on Tuesday, Aussie captain Cummins revealed Dew is a close friend of fellow South Australian Travis Head. The AFL premiership player inspected the Old Trafford wicket and was spotted in deep discussion with Head, fellow South Australian player Alex Carey, and Victorian bowler Scott Boland.

"It's good Stuey could get on a holiday over here," Cummins said. "He knows a few of the boys quite well, so it's good to have him around.

"We have some footy 'nuffs' in our teams, so I am sure they will be picking his brain for their fantasy sides and we've had about 10 Geelong footy members come in with Ronny (Andrew McDonald). So it's good to have someone else."

Dew's appearance in Australia's camp comes after retired Geelong champion Joel Selwood, who shares a connection with coach McDonald, also did some work with the cricketers. The Gold Coast Suns board met last Monday night and voted to sack Dew despite the coach winning a two-year contract extension last season.

Bad weather forecast for fourth Test in Manchester

Meanwhile, Australia's hopes of retaining the Ashes urn have been given a significant boost by the weather forecast for the next five days. Four of the five days of the fourth Test are set to be affected by poor weather, which could play into Australia's hands.

With a 2-1 series led, the Aussies only need to draw one of the remaining two Tests in order to retain the urn. Rain has fallen every day in Manchester for the past week, and while the forecast is better for the first two days it is much more bleak over the weekend.

It means England's chances of winning back the Ashes for the first time since 2015 could be washed away. "You never want to look too much into the weather but in the position we find ourselves in, we find we might have to," England captain Ben Stokes said.

"We know we have to win this game to take it to the last game for us to have a chance of getting the urn back. Going into the last game 2-0 down, we knew we had to win that so I think that helped us a little bit. Maybe again with the weather that's predicted, it might bring more out of us again knowing that we might have to push the game on even more than we normally do."

Cummins said it was too early to begin planning for rain, but the Aussies wouldn't risk a possible loss at Old Trafford to go hard chasing a win. "Any player is at their best when they are trying to win a game and compete," he said.

"It's one of those things you can't think about too much. Forecasts are necessarily that accurate. Things change quickly. You go out to win and if there is a big shift in conditions and you need to change the way we think about it, we do."

with AAP

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