Australia announce a strong 23-man preliminary squad for West Indies tour

Cricket Ausstralia has welcomed back their big guns for the upcoming tour of the Caribbean Islands. Australia will cross swords with West Indies in five T20Is and three ODIs in July. With the ICC T20 World Cup slated to take place in India later this year, CA has named a full-strength squad for the white-ball series against West Indies which saw the return of many prominent names.

Australia has named a 23-man extended squad for the ODI and T20I series, which gets underway on July 9. Eight players that were missing from the T20I tour of New Zealand in March have all been included in this series. Hence, the likes of Steve Smith, David Warner, Pat Cummins, and Mitchell Starc are back in the Aaron Finch-led side and would be determined to make a mark.

Meanwhile, Ben McDermott and Ashton Turner, who played in New Zealand, have been omitted from the team. Sams made himself unavailable for the tour, citing health and wellbeing reasons. One day incumbents Marnus Labuschagne and Cameron Green have also been left out. While Labuschagne is playing County cricket in England, Green wants to have a strong domestic season for West Australia, and the all-rounder is working on his bowling.

Steve Smith and David Warner back for Australia

The side indeed looks formidable, with skipper Aaron Finch, Steve Smith, and David Warner being proven stars of limited-overs cricket. On top of that, the pace troika of Pat Cummins, Mitchell  Starc, and Josh Hazlewood makes Australia’s bowling attack daunting. The side also doesn’t have any dearth of all-rounders with the likes of Glen Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Mitch Marsh, Moises Henriques, and D’Arcy Short. In the spin department, CA has picked Adam Zampa, Mitch Swepson alongside uncapped Tanveer Sangha.

With the series comprising five T20Is, Australia has enough chance to try different permutation and combinations to identify their best line-up or the gala tournament later this year. At the same time, however, they can’t be complacent against the two-time World champions who have done well in the shortest international format lately.

Australia squad for Tour of the West Indies: Aaron Finch (c), Ashton Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Riley Meredith, Josh Philippe, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, Tanveer Sangh, D’Arcy Short, Steven Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Mitchell Swepson, Andrew Tye, Matthew Wade, David Warner, Adam Zampa.