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Pat Cummins will depart Adelaide on a single charter flight and return home in a deal struck with South Australian health officials.
Pat Cummins has struck a deal with South Australian health authorities to return home to NSW for the rest of his enforced isolation.
The Australian Test captain was ruled out of the second Ashes Test against England after being deemed a close contact of a COVID case in Adelaide.
But in a deal struck with SA Health officials on Friday, Cummins has been allowed to drive from his Adelaide hotel to the city's airport where he will catch a single charter flight home to Sydney.
"He will continue to observe all isolation requirements in NSW," Cricket Australia (CA) said in a statement.
Cummins returned a negative test for COVID on Thursday after being withdrawn from the day-night match.
The Test skipper was at a steakhouse on Wednesday night when another patron in the same indoor area as Cummins was notified he had COVID.
Fellow Test bowlers Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Starc were at the same restaurant at the time but were seated outdoors and not considered as close contacts.
CA ruled Cummins out of playing before he was officially deemed a close contact of the COVID case and, under SA rules, was required to isolate for seven days.
Chief executive Nick Hockley says CA was acting on inside information from emergency meetings with SA Health in pulling Cummins out of the second Test.
SA Premier Steven Marshall said Cummins was ruled out before he was interviewed by health officials.
"This is a decision that was made by Cricket Australia, let's be very clear about it," Marshall told reporters on Friday.
"They put their statement out before we actually conducted the interview with Pat.
"So the issue is that Cricket Australia probably formed the opinion that they didn't want to have a chance for the entire two teams to be deemed as close contacts and ruin the entire Test series."
CA issued a statement three hours before the start of Thursday's play saying SA Health had confirmed Cummins "is a close contact and will be required to isolate for seven days".
But Hockley said SA Health had confirmed Cummins would be classed as a close contact when it made the decision to rule him out of the Adelaide Test.
"We called an emergency meeting with our contacts at SA Health and they confirmed to us that Pat would be treated as a close contact," Hockley told SEN radio on Friday.
Hockley ruled out putting players into lockdown when the five-Test series moved to Melbourne and Sydney, cities where COVID case numbers are higher than Adelaide and Hobart, the venue for the fifth Test.
Players would still be allowed to attend restaurants in small groups in Melbourne and Sydney - if they dined outdoors.
"If players are keeping themselves to small groups and they're interacting with their own group only, they're trying to keep away from indoor settings, then we think with masks and regular testing we can mitigate," Hockley said.
"It's a wake-up call for everyone across the game.
"We are confident in our protocols that they're appropriate and it is that fine balance about common sense.
"Everyone now just needs to be extra vigilant because we have had a real very high-profile case of disruption."
