Cricket Australia Withdraws Pacer Billy Stanlake from Yorkshire Stint

Cricket Australia (CA) has withdrawn their pacer Billy Stanlake from his stint in county cricket with Yorkshire to make him focus on national commitments.

The tallest player to represent Australia in international cricket, Stanlake has boosted his reputation after a breakout summer in the T20 format.

The lanky pacer is now tipped to be an integral part of Australia’s ODI and T20 teams for the matches in England and Zimbabwe in June and July. Stanlake can also be on the plane for a planned Australia A tour of India.

Earlier, he was ruled out of the Indian Premier League after he fractured the finger on his right hand in the Sunrisers Hyderabad’s match against Chennai in mid-April.

He made his debut for Sunrisers in their season-opener against Rajasthan Royals. The pacer picked up one for 29 in that match. Stanlake further went on to play three more games, picking up four more wickets. He also scored the winning run on the last ball in a thrilling contest against Mumbai Indians.

The 23-year old resumed his practice on last Friday. He was scheduled to play 12 T20 matches with the Yorkshire Vikings in the English domestic T20 competition.

Stanlake was also set to miss the first two games of the competition due to the tri-series in Zimbabwe.

New Australia head coach, Justin Langer has said Australia would send a strong team for the ‘A’ tour of India. As a result, Stanlake would have made it to the team.

“There’s an Australia A tour to India where there’s a couple of four-day games,” Justin Langer said on SEN radio today. “I imagine we might leave our selection for Pakistan (in) the UAE quite late, use that build-up and use that match practice. I’d suggest it might be a pretty strong Australia A team going to India,” he added.

Yorkshire director of cricket Martyn Moxon confirmed the news.

“Cricket Australia got in touch on Friday and have decided on a different strategy for Billy Stanlake,” Moxon said.

“Now the new Australia coach is in place; they want him to play some different cricket to T20 during the period he was due to be with us. Consequently, they’ve pulled him out of our deal, which is obviously very disappointing for us,” he added. “We’re not the only county, it would appear, who has been affected by this.”