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Australia Test players rested for T20Is against Pakistan with captain to be named

Xavier Bartlett, Nathan Ellis and Spencer Johnson have been named to return for Australia’s T20I series against Pakistan, with all the Test players rested ahead of facing India, but a new captain has yet to be confirmed.

Australia’s most recent T20I captains in Mitchell Marsh and Travis Head are unavailable, as is Pat Cummins. Glenn Maxwell, Adam Zampa, Matthew Short and Aaron Hardie have all captained in the BBL while Josh Inglis is also a strong candidate given his leadership and tactical nous is highly regarded having been Perth Scorchers vice-captain.

Chairman of selectors George Bailey said a decision on the captaincy would be made closer to the start of the series.

“I think there’s a number of players with the ability to captain and some that have had some captaincy experience as well,” Bailey said. “We’ll work through that.”

Bartlett, Ellis and Johnson all return from injury following the torrid tour of UK where they were ruled out with various issues. Johnson returned to domestic cricket last Friday when he played in a One-Day Cup match for South Australia against Queensland.

Bartlett (side strain) and Ellis (hamstring) have been slower to recover but are expected to be fit for the three-match series that begins on November 14 and finishes on November 18.

There were no surprises in the 13-man squad with a very similar group named to the one that toured the UK in September. Maxwell returns to the fold after being rested from the T20I portion of that trip. Short and Jake Fraser-McGurk look set to open the batting, just as they likely will in the ODI series that precedes the T20Is against Pakistan. Fraser-McGurk batted at No. 3 in his last T20I when Short opened with Head.

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With the series finishing just four days before the opening Test against India in Perth, none of the main Test players were made available. Marsh and Head are also missing the ODI series while on paternity leave. Bailey said the two series were too close together to have players play in both.

“They just cross over a little bit in terms of the preparation,” Bailey said. “The Test squad will be arriving in Perth and sort of finalising their Test prep around the time of that second T20. We’ve been really clear that we are prioritising the preparation for individuals around the Test summer and that’ll be the first time that we get that group together. So rather than switching guys in and out and it becoming quite messy, it was just deemed more appropriate for a number of reasons to separate them out.”

However, Bailey left the door ajar for members of the T20I squad to join the Test group post the series if required.

“You’ve just got to cover your bases in case you lose the wrong person at the wrong time,” Bailey said. “If that does shift, we can get someone across to Perth, and their preparation would look a little bit different, but that’d be okay.”

“I’ve spoken to Josh on this,” Bailey said. “Not in the short term. I don’t think that he’s someone that we’d be looking to place at the top of the order. But there’s no doubt that the form is really fantastic at the moment, as we’ve seen when he has been playing for Australia. And then the ability to jump back into domestic cricket and dominate, as he has been, has been fantastic.

“I think different series at different times of the year, he would firmly come into the mix purely as a batter, the way he’s been going. And I think if the right opportunity opened up throughout the summer in the spots where we think he’s most capable of performing, then I think he’d be fairly in that conversation as well.”

Australia will have a different coaching staff for the T20I series as well with head coach Andrew McDonald, batting coach Michael Di Venuto and bowling coach Daniel Vettori having a short break then being involved with the build-up in Perth.

Assistant coach Andre Borovec will take charge, as he did for Australia’s five-match T20I series against India last October. Former Australia batter Brad Hodge is also set to join the group as an assistant coach after touring with the T20 World Cup squad as a coaching consultant in June. Matthew Wade, who is yet to retire from international cricket and captained Australia’s T20I side in February, is reportedly set to join the squad as well in a coaching role.

Australia’s T20I squad vs Pakistan: Sean Abbott, Xavier Bartlett, Cooper Connolly, Tim David, Nathan Ellis, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Aaron Hardie, Josh Inglis, Spencer Johnson, Glenn Maxwell, Matthew Short, Marcus Stoinis, Adam Zampa

Alex Malcolm is an associate editor at ESPNcricinfo

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