Australia have confirmed their playing XI for the first of the three-match T20I series against South Africa. The visitors are set to hand three players their T20I debut. Spencer Johnson, Aaron Hardie and Matt Short are the debutants under new captain Mitchell Marsh who is set to become Australia's 12th leader in the shortest format. It is a completely new-look Australian side with six of their first-choice players either injured or rested.
With Aaron Finch retired, Australia will see a completely new opening pair of Matt Short and Travis Head in the opening T20I of the series with skipper Marsh, Josh Inglis and Marcus Stoinis to follow. Tim David will continue to be the finisher while Aaron Hardie who bats at number three in BBL for Perth Scorchers has been slotted at seven. Interestingly, Johnson and Hardie are also part of the ODI squad for the South Africa series and could be in the plans of making it to the final World Cup squad too.
Australia are troubled with injuries with just more than a month to go for the World Cup. Pat Cummins and Steve Smith are nursing a wrist injury, Mitchell Starc is recovering from a groin while Glenn Maxwell is ruled out with an ankle injury. But all these players are expected to return for the India series prior to the mega event. However, Australia head coach Andrew McDonald felt that Maxwell's injury is concerning.
"It's concerning. And the reason why it's concerning is it's happened a couple of times. If you remember back to the three-match series against India he played in the first one and pulled up a bit lame from that and then coming into camp for this one has had another small setback. There's no doubt on the back of what was a horrendous injury that he suffered there's always going to be a balance between the load that he can take on and unfortunately, he's had a small setback here but we're confident that he'll be right for the World Cup," McDonald told SEN Radio.
Australia playing XI for 1st T20I: Matt Short, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh (capt), Josh Inglis (WK), Marcus Stoinis, Tim David, Aaron Hardie, Sean Abbott, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa, Spencer Johnson
