Tag: Australian selection chair

Bailey has meanwhile suggested the Aussies may look to protect Glenn Maxwell in the field during the tournament, mindful of his dual importance to the side as a game-changing middle order batter and “frontline” spin option.

Cricket Australia on Thursday confirmed the 11th hour call to omit Agar from its 15-man squad for the World Cup in India – which begins next week – with the left-arm spinner making way for Marnus Labuschagne.

Both Agar (calf) and Head (broken hand) would have been unable for the start of the event with selectors prioritising Head after being unwilling to take two injured players into the tournament.

The South Australian opener remains in Adelaide rehabilitating after suffering the injury during the recent series against South Africa.

Selectors are banking on Head becoming available at around the midway point of the seven-week tournament but Bailey was unwilling to specify a particular game or date by which the left-hander would need to be available before plans for him to return would be abandoned.

“We are aware of the risks that if there is a setback at some point it makes it really challenging for Trav, but he’s a really important player for us,” Bailey said from India on Friday.

“First and foremost it’s about him recovering and that’s the hurdle that he’s got to overcome. He’s got a broken bone. So there’s not a specific date or a game.

“I don’t think we’ve put a time frame on it from that point of view

“When he does come online whenever that is and he’s available, he can he can have a really important impact for us towards the end of the tour.”

Bailey said the decision to leave Agar out had come late, and acknowledged the disappointment of the white-ball specialist, who also departed early from a Test tour of India in February.

“We wanted as much information as we could on Ash and the rest of the squad, just weighing up the risk, clearly we’ve prioritised retaining Travis with his injury and hoping that he comes online, unfortunately for Ash we couldn’t see a way through where we could carry two players with injuries so he was the unfortunate one to miss out,” Bailey said.

“Hopefully he can put together a really good rehab now, over a number of weeks. If there is an opportunity through unfortunately someone else getting injured later in the piece, there’s a chance he could re-emerge there.”

Having overcome a leg injury that forced him home early from South Africa, Maxwell returned in Wednesday night’s third one-day international against India in Rajkot, taking 4-40 as the Aussies snapped a five-match losing run.

Maxwell broke his leg in a freak accident late last year and has played little international cricket since, with Bailey acknowledging that Australia would need to manage his workload.

“Glenn’s been so dynamic across his one-day career, not only, his ability with the bat and ball, but even just the positions he puts himself in the field. So there’s been a high workload,” Bailey said.

“He doesn’t necessarily have to go to the hotspots or he might have some games where we can try and find some quiet spots for him in the field.”

But Bailey was adamant that the Victorian, who averages 47.71 with the ball in ODIs, was capable of playing the No. 2 spinner role behind Adam Zampa after Agar’s removal left the Aussies’ tweaker stocks depleted.

“I’m not sure it’s fair on Maxi to say he’s not a specialist spinner. I think his white-ball one-day and T20 spinning record is pretty handy. And I think we can very much consider him a frontline option. So we consider that we’ve got two frontline spinners within our first-choice XI.”