Pat Cummins is still in Australia, so Steve Smith will lead Australia in the upcoming three-match ODI series against India. After the second Test of the series, Cummins went back to Australia to be with his sick mother, who later died.
“Pat won’t be coming back, he’s still taking care of what’s happened back home, Our thoughts are with Pat and his family as they go through that grieving process,” said head coach Andrew McDonald.
Smith will lead the team, since he was in charge when Cummins wasn’t there for the Tests. No one has been chosen to take over for Cummins. Josh Hazlewood and Jhye Richardson have already been hurt and can’t play for the team. Nathan Ellis was called up to replace Sean Abbott, but Abbott had already been named to the squad. David Warner, Glenn Maxwell, and Mitchell Marsh, who had been out with injuries, will also come back to play for Australia.
The series will be like a dress rehearsal for the ODI World Cup, which will be held in the same country later in the year.
“We’ve got a couple of conversations around the balance of the team we want to play, we’ve gone in with a structure with eight batters to bat a little bit deeper, we’ve tried that. So there’ll be a mix of combinations as we lead into the World Cup.
“(There are) a lot of allrounders picked in the squad and can they all play in the one team? So we’ve got to answer a few of those questions,” said McDonald.
Australia squad: Steve Smith (c), Alex Carey (wk), Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Marnus Labuschagne, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, David Warner, Adam Zampa
