Australia give ‘concrete shape’ to T20 World Cup squad

KARACHI: It’s still almost six months away. The ICC Twenty20 World Cup is scheduled to begin in Australia on October 18 but due to the Covid-19 pandemic there are serious doubts over the event.

But the Aussies don’t care.

Despite the fact that the event is months away and fears that it might have to be postponed, the hosts are already ‘close to finalising’ their squad for what is the biggest cricketing spectacle of the year.

According to Australia’s chairman of selectors, Trevor Hohns, the national team has taken a concrete shape with the exception of the ‘last one or two positions’.

The Australians have enjoyed a glorious run in the T20I format recently. They have won nine out of their last 10 completed T20Is across series against India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Africa.

The consequence of such strong showing is that, despite international cricket currently being on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, the squad is more or less settled upon.

‘The last one or two positions always give us a headache normally. Particularly when you’ve got a settled line-up that has performed very well over the last 12 months,’ Hohns said.

‘We’d be very close (to finalising a squad). If we had to, we could probably just about nominate it now.’

Cricket Australia have announced central contracts for the 2020-21 season.

The Australian Test and ODI teams have benefitted from the meteoric rise of Marnus Labuschagne in recent months, but he hasn’t yet had a chance to prove his worth in the shortest format.

Will the hosts be tempted to play him in the T20 World Cup? Hohns indicated that Australia are keeping their options open, but aren’t inclined towards rushing the 25-year-old into the T20I outfit.

‘We don’t want to go too far with him yet. He works so hard, he’s now playing Test cricket and one-day cricket,’ Hohns said. ‘That’s happened in a short period of time. We don’t want to overburden but there’s no reason why a player like that can’t play T20 cricket.

‘At the moment it’s in his court and we have a pretty good T20 side or squad ... they’re the ones we’ll be focusing on, looking forward to the World Cup,’ he said. —with inputs from agencies