Cricket Australia (CA) have named a star-studded squad for the Aussies T20 World Cup 2021 campaign, with captain Aaron Finch, opener David Warner and former skipper Steve Smith among the big names returning to action.
Nine players, who recently competed against the West Indies and Bangladesh, have not been retained. Wicketkeeper-batsman Alex Carey and fast bowlers Jhye Richardson, Andrew Tye are among the notable omissions.
Chief selector George Bailey said that Carey’s omission was “purely performance based”, and he believes the South Australian still has a long future at least in ODI cricket.
“We want to be really distinct in separating ODIs and T20 here because the feedback for Alex, even on this most recent tour, is that his one-day cricket has been fantastic,” Bailey said in a statement.
“We were highly impressed with not only the way he played in these most recent one-day games but the way he led the team in pretty challenging circumstances. He’s someone we have a huge amount of respect for the way he goes about it and see him playing a lot more games of cricket for Australia and having a really big role in the team, and the culture of the team going forward.”
In place of Carey, uncapped Josh Inglis has been picked in the 15-member squad. Inglis’ dominating performance in England’s T20 Blast – 531 runs at an average of 48.27 and a strike rate of 175.82 – went in his favour.
Bailey told reporters that Inglis had been on the radar of selectors for quite a some time.
“We had spoken to Josh about playing in The Blast and, hopefully, The Hundred and continuing to push his case that way and he really did,” Bailey said.
Meanwhile, Joshua Philippe, Moises Henriques, Riley Meredith, Ashton Turner, Jason Behrendorff and Ben McDermott also failed to make a cut in the final 15.
This year, Australia has won just four T20Is out of 15, but Bailey believes that Aussies are capable of turning things around.
“We are confident this squad has the ability to take the side deep into what will be an extremely competitive tournament,” the cricketer-turned-selector said.
“We have some of the best players in the world in their respective roles combined with the collective experience to succeed against the very best T20 sides in the world,” he added.
Australia squad for T20 World Cup 2021:
Aaron Finch (c), Ashton Agar, Pat Cummins (vc), Josh Hazlewood, Josh Inglis (wk), Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Kane Richardson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade (wk), David Warner, Adam Zampa.
Travelling reserves: Daniel Christian, Nathan Ellis, Daniel Sams.
