Australia Tour of West Indies: Australia will travel to West Indies and Bangladesh with a depleted squad as its cricketers who played in the IPL 2021 have been rested. The likes of David Warner, Glenn Maxwell and Test vice-captain Pat Cummins will not be part of Australia’s tour of West Indies and a limited-overs tour of Bangladesh that will culminate in August. Steve Smith has also been ruled out due to an elbow injury as Cricket Australia announced an 18-member squad on Wednesday.
Australia will tour the West Indies for a limited-overs series that will include five T20Is and 3 ODIs from July 9 to July 24 while the dates of the Bangladesh series are yet to be announced. But it will be followed by the West Indies series.
The National Selection panel has named the 18-player squad for the Qantas Australian men’s white ball tours of the West Indies and Bangladesh.
Full release: https://t.co/pAV9fr7drd pic.twitter.com/JAGMYQrOy9
— Cricket Australia (@CricketAus) June 16, 2021
Australia Tour of West Indies: A total of seven first-team players have withdrawn from the tours after returning from IPL 2021 on May 15, a fortnight after the tournament was suspended. As many as 17 players are part of IPL 2021 franchises with only Andrew Tye and Adam Zampa pulling out midway through the IPL season in India. The rest of the contingent was transported to the Maldives where they waited for the Australian government’s travel ban to be lifted.
Amongst the IPL 2021 players, David Warner, Pat Cummins, Glenn Maxwell, Jhye Richardson, Daniel Sams, Marcus Stoinis and Kane Richardson are the seven players who have withdrawn from the West Indies and Bangladesh tour. As per Cricket Australia press release, they requested not to be named due to “various reasons”. Only Jason Behrendorff, Moises Henriques and Riley Meredith who completed IPL 2021 commitments till the last match before suspension have been named to the squad.
Australia Tour of West Indies: However, Pat Cummins is also unlikely to be available for the IPL 2021 Phase 2 as he has decided not to return as per Australian media reports. As for others including David Warner, it is still not clear whether they will be available for the IPL 2021 in UAE which begins on September 19.
Steve Smith had requested Cricket Australia to not include him in the squad as he is recovering from an elbow injury.
“We are naturally disappointed not to have all players available for the Australian team at this time, however, the NSP respects the decisions of those who have opted out of this tour. Steve Smith was unavailable for selection due to an elbow injury and will now be able to use this time to fully recover ahead of the World Cup and home Ashes series. Steve was disappointed to miss the tour with the decision made on medical grounds,” Australia’s national selector Trevor Hohns said.
Australia squad for West Indies and Bangladesh Tour: Aaron Finch (capt), Ashton Agar, Wes Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey, Dan Christian, Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques, Mitchell Marsh, Riley Meredith, Ben McDermott, Josh Philippe, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye, Matthew Wade, Adam Zampa
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