Australia Have 18-19 Players In Fight For Spot In ICC World Cup 2019 - Trevor Hohns

The last edition of ICC World Cup has seen Australian players raring to go with the bunch of youngsters and experienced lads coming good for the team. However, within 4 years, things changed dramatically for the defending champions, as they are yet to figure out their best squad for the ICC World Cup 2019 despite having only a few games under their belt.

On Friday, Australia named an unchanged ODI squad for the UAE ODI tour where they will face Pakistan in a five-match series. Prominent among those to miss out included Steven Smith, David Warner and Mitchell Starc.

I don’t nominate anyone for now – Trevor Hohns

The selector quoted that he doesn’t want to give any player name for now, as he feels that each player should own their spot in the world cup. Further, he added that there are 18-19 players available in the ranks for Cricket Australia, from which, they would like to pick the players.

“I won’t nominate anyone at the moment but there’s still probably 18 or 19 names going around in my head,” Hohns was quoted as saying by cricket.com.auon Friday. There’s still this lot of course, there’s no doubt about that. We’ve got the other couple of boys that will everyone knows will be available again and there’s still others back home on the sidelines that could consider themselves a chance.”

Steven Smith and David Warner will be available:

In between, the swashbuckling players David Warner and Steve Smith are all set to end their ban period officially on March 29th. It will be the same day, which is scheduled for the 4th ODI game of the bilateral series against Pakistan. However, Australian haven’t named them in the squad.

Speaking of the return, the national selector Hohns quoted that they have felt the best way to enter the competitive cricket for the discarded duo would be IPL. He believes that the Indian Premier League has got the quality, which would certainly help the youngsters to make a statement.

“It’d be nice to see them perform but it’s just a matter of playing. We all know they’re two of the better players in world cricket. So it’s only natural we will take them seriously into consideration when we pick our World Cup squad. The main thing for them and us is to have them playing competitive cricket,” he said.

However, the news of the duo returning to cricket field is a piece of positive news for the team who are waiting for them to join the ranks as they embark on their journey to defend the ICC World Cup title in England later this year.