Matthew Wade Dropped As Australia Pick Five Uncapped Players For South Africa Tests

Australia have announced their 19-man squad for the upcoming Test series in South Africa. Middle-order batsman Matthew Wade has been the most notable casualty of the loss during the recently-concluded series against India. He has been replaced by uncapped Alex Carey for the series against the Proteas. Australia are scheduled to play three Tests in South Africa.

Wade will travel with the T20I side to New Zealand for the five-match series with Australia playing two tours at the same time. While the squad will leave for New Zealand on February 7, the tour to South Africa “remains subject to satisfactory biosecurity arrangements”. While head coach Justin Langer will head to South Africa, the T20I side will be coached by Andrew McDonald.

Wade played all four matches of the series that India won 2-1 – two of them as an interim opener with David Warner absent through injury – and failed to score big. In the four games, he managed to score only 173 runs from eight innings at an average of 21.62. Apart from Carey, Australia have named four other uncapped players in the squad too – Sean Abbott, Michael Neser, Mitchell Swepson and Mark Steketee.

“When presented with the challenging task of selecting two concurrent Australian men’s squads for overseas tours, we picked our first-choice Test squad given the importance of the proposed series against South Africa,” head selector Trevor Hohns said.

“The squad is quite similar to that selected for the final two Tests of the recently-completed Border-Gavaskar series, with the exception of Matt Wade, who will join the Australian men’s T20I squad in New Zealand, and the addition of Alex Carey, who has been in strong form with both bat and gloves. It is testament to the depth of Australian cricket that the NSP (National Selection Panel) has been able to select two Australian men’s international squads of such quality,” he added.

Australia Test squad for Tour of South Africa:

Tim Paine (c), Sean Abbott, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Moises Henriques, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, James Pattinson, Will Pucovski, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Mark Steketee, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner.

Also Read: IPL 2021 Auction: 3 Players That SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) Will Target

Also Read: IPL 2021 Auction: 3 Players That Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) Will Target