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Australia name fresh squad for India T20Is in middle of series, six World Cup-winning stars released after two losses
Australia made wholesale changes to their T20I squad for the remaining three-match against India. Six players from their World Cup-winning team were released.
Australia decided to release six out of their seven World Cup-winning squad members from the ongoing five-match T20I series against India. CricketAustralia.com.au reported that Steve Smith and Adam Zampa have already flown back home while Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Josh Inglis and Sean Abbott will return home on Wednesday after the the third T20I at Guwahati on Tuesday. The decision was taken to give a breather to the players who have been in India for more than two months now. Most of these players were also a part of Australia's ODI squad that played a three-match series against India in the lead-up to the World Cup.
Travis Head is the only member of Australia's World Cup-winning squad who will stay back for the remaining matches of this T20I series. Head, the Player of the Match in the World Cup final, is yet to feature in this series.
The left-handed opening batter is set to open the batting from the third T20I itself.
Replacements named for Inglis, Smith and Zampa
As far as replacements in the T20I squad are concerned, wicketkeeper-batter Josh Phillippe and big-hitter Ben McDermott have already linked up with the squad in Guwahati and are available for selection.
Ben Dwarshuis and off-spinner Chris Green are likely to join the squad on Wednesday ahead of the fourth T20I in Raipur.
Green is all set to make his debut in the fourth T20I after the Australian team management felt the need to include a specialist finger spinner in their squad.
After losing the first two matches against a superior Indian batting unit, Australia are trailing 0-2 in the series. Smith was the only player of Australia's World Cup final XI that featured in both the T20Is. Stoinis and Abbott, who were part of the World Cup squad but didn't feature in the XI much, also played both matches.
Maxwell and Zampa returned for the second T20I but they couldn't do much to change Australia's fortunes.
Earlier, David Warner was withdrawn from the T20I squad even before the series began.
India, meanwhile, have made no changes to their squad for the third match. Shreyas Iyer, however, will be available for selection from the next match onwards. He will also take over as the vice-captain of the side from Ruturaj Gaikwad. Suryakumar Yadav will continue to lead the side in Hardik Pandya's absence.
Updated Australia T20 squad for India series: Matthew Wade (c), Jason Behrendorff, Tim David, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Chris Green, Aaron Hardie, Travis Head, Ben McDermott, Josh Philippe, Tanveer Sangha, Matt Short, Kane Richardson
India T20 squad: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Ruturaj Gaikwad (vc), Ishan Kishan, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Shivam Dubey, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar, Shreyas Iyer (last two matches only)
