World Cup 2022: Ex-Peterborough United striker selected for Australia squad

The ex-Posh man had his place on the plane to Qatar confirmed on Tuesday (November 8) morning by Australia Head Coach Graham Arnold.

The striker has two caps for Scotland but both were appearances in friendlies between 2017 and 18 and he has since changed his allegiance to represent Australia. Cummings has dual citizenship between the UK and Australia through his mother.

He only made his second international debut in September, the final game before Arnold named his squad for the finals, but Cummings got on the scoresheet with a penalty to make it 2-0 in New Zealand.

He joined the Central Coast Mariners in Australia in January this year and has since scored 12 goals in 24 A-League matches.

Australia are in Group D alongside France, Tunisia and Denmark. They begin their campaign against France in Al Wakrah on November 22.

Cummings is in line to be the fifth ex-Posh player (excluding loanee Danny Rose) to play at the World Cup finals. The first was also from Australia- Jimmy Rooney in 1974. Remarkably, Rooney was also Scottish but emigrated to Australia in 1968.

The others are Colin Clarke (Northern Ireland, 1986), David Seaman (England, 1998 and 2002) and Gary Breen (Republic of Ireland, 2002).

Cummings joined Posh on loan from Nottingham Forest in the summer of 2018. He scored six goals and provided three assists in August to propel Posh top and to bag him the August Player of the Month award, however, he did not score any more league goals for the club before his loan spell was ended in January of the same season.

He arrived at the club alongside Ivan Toney, who will find out if he has made Gareth Southgate’s squad on Thursday (November 10).