Although skipper Mitchell Marsh will not be able to bowl until the last week before Australia’s T20 World Cup team leaves for the Caribbean, coach Andrew McDonald is sure he will be 100% for the tournament’s first game.
After suffering a hamstring strain early last month, Marsh was declared out of the IPL, and his recovery has been far slower than anticipated when he got back home from India.
Marsh headed to Brisbane for the first of two three-day pre-tournament training camps with other Australian squad players who are not playing in the IPL over the next two weeks before the team departs for the Caribbean on May 25.
Although Marsh was not originally supposed to attend the first camp this week, during the last two days, his hamstring has healed sufficiently for him to arrive and bat in the nets. McDonald did, however, affirm that he would not be ready to bowl until much later in the event.
“You probably won’t see him bowl in the next couple of weeks here,” McDonald told reporters at Allan Border Field on Tuesday. “It’ll probably happen the week before we leave. And then he’ll be able to ramp that up when we’re over there. We’ll be able to cherry-pick the moments during the tournament where he’ll be useful with the ball. We’ve got some all-round depth in the squad, which gives us good coverage anyway.
“[His recovery was] probably a little slower than expected on the back of the hamstring. But we’ve got plenty of time now that he has been ruled out the IPL. The first game is just short of a month away now. So ample time for him to get ready. But really positive to see the skipper on the park.”
Given Australia would have some practice games before their debut match against Oman, McDonald said there was no need to worry about Marsh’s lack of match practice over the past two months.
“No real concern about match fitness,” McDonald said. “We’ve got a couple of practice games when we get to Trinidad in the support period. So he’ll likely get plenty of match opportunities. And if not, we’ll be able to simulate those through practice, which our coaching staff are pretty good at.”
Of Australia’s 15 players, only Marsh, Josh Hazlewood, Josh Inglis, Ashton Agar, and Adam Zampa are not currently playing in the IPL. These five, along with Aaron Hardie, Tanveer Sangha, Matt Short, Matt Kuhnemann, Xavier Bartlett, and Marnus Labuschagne, took part in the first two days of training in Brisbane. The latter, who is getting ready to play in the county tournament with Glamorgan in England, was the sole player practicing with the red ball; the rest are part of a larger group that is waiting to travel as prospective World Cup reserves.
McDonald said Australia would probably take one traveling reserve, but they haven’t decided what kind of player they need to cover the 15-man roster.
“We’ve got some decisions to make,” McDonald said. “We’ve seen some international sides have up to four reserves. That’ll be something that [chair of selectors] George Bailey will get us together around in the next couple of weeks and we’ll put the final touches on that squad. We will take a reserve at this stage and it’s looking like one reserve.”
McDonald was asked how old the Australian team was after in-form youngster Jake Fraser-McGurk was left out. Cameron Green will turn 25 rights before the competition, so Australia will only have one player under the age of 28 on its roster. The only other members of the team under 30 are Nathan Ellis, Tim David, and Inglis.
But the coach backed his senior players to deliver again on the big stage.
“There’s been a discussion around the age profile of our team in all formats,” McDonald said. “I’m a big believer in you don’t know when the end is going to be. And a lot of people write off those players just based around their age.
“We feel as though in the last 12 months in particular in the white-ball space we’ve given plenty of opportunities to other players. Have we gone back to the tried and tested in terms of World Cups and the performers that we know can perform on that stage? There’s no doubt about that. It’s players that have been there before and done it and are still in good form. And you look at David Warner in the last 15 games for Australia, his record is outstanding. Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, those players that are probably the elder statesman of the team are still performing at international level. And that goes a long way.”
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