Australia call up O'Keefe for injured Hauritz

Australia, on Wednesday, gave a surprise call-up to uncapped spin-bowling all-rounder Stephen O'Keefe, who will replace the injured Nathan Hauritz in the Test squad to face Pakistan in England.

Updated on: Jun 30, 2010, 14:37:54 IST

AFP | By HT Correspondent, Sydney

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Australia, on Wednesday, gave a surprise call-up to uncapped spin-bowling all-rounder Stephen O'Keefe, who will replace the injured Nathan Hauritz in the Test squad to face Pakistan in England.

The 25-year-old left-armer earned his breakthrough on the back of strong performances for Australia A and after Hauritz went home with a foot problem, further depleting the tourists' bowling stocks.

"Stephen has performed strongly in the recent Australia A series against Sri Lanka A in Queensland and is a good young all-round cricketer who deserves his chance," said selectors' chairman Andrew Hilditch.

O'Keefe joins the tour, moved from extremism-wracked Pakistan for security reasons, for two Twenty20 matches and two Tests starting next Monday. Australia are already 3-0 down in their ongoing five-match one-day series against England.

Get the Cricket Live Score! including IPL Matches and track ICC rankings shifts, Cricket Schedule, and Players Stats along with detailed score profiles of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill.