All-rounder Shane Watson, who is struggling with a tight hamstring, joins a long list of absentees from Australia’s top batting line-up to face England in the tri-series one-day international at Hobart on Friday.
Explosive opener David Warner is officially being rested for the one-day game while Michael Clarke is trying to regain fitness after hamstring surgery and stand-in skipper George Bailey has been suspended for a slow over rate against India in Melbourne on Sunday.
Morgan blackmailed
England one-day captain Eoin Morgan was the target of a recent blackmail attempt relating to a past relationship with an Australian woman, the team said Thursday.
The England and Wales Cricket Board said it received an email from an Australian man demanding a “five-figure sum” to prevent him providing details to newspapers regarding a relationship Morgan had with a woman five years ago.
The ECB said the man is now in a relationship with the woman.