Bartlett, Ellis and Johnson all return from injury following the torrid tour of UK where they were ruled out with various issues. Johnson returned to domestic cricket last Friday when he played in the One-Day Cup match for South Australia against Queensland.
Bartlett (side strain) and Ellis (hamstring) have been slower to recover but are expected to be fit for the three-match series that begins on November 14 and finishes on November 18.
There were no surprises in the 13-man squad with a very similar group named to the one that toured the UK in September. Maxwell returns to the fold after being rested from the T20I portion of that trip. Short and Jake Fraser-McGurk look set to open the batting, just as they likely will in the ODI series that precedes the T20Is against Pakistan. Fraser-McGurk batted at No. 3 in his last T20I when Short opened with Head.
With the series finishing just four days before the opening Test against India in Perth, none of the main Test players were made available. Marsh and Head are also missing the ODI series while on paternity leave. Chairman of selectors George Bailey said the two series were too close together to have players play in both.
“They just cross over a little bit in terms of the preparation,” Bailey said. “The Test squad will be arriving in Perth and sort of finalizing their Test prep around the time of that second T20. We’ve been really clear that we are prioritizing the preparation for individuals around the Test summer and that’ll be the first time that we get that group together. So rather than switching guys in and out and it becoming quite messy, it was just deemed more appropriate for a number of reasons to separate them out.”
However, Bailey left the door ajar for members of the T20I squad to join the Test group post the series if required.
“You’ve just got to cover your bases in case you lose the wrong person at the wrong time,” Bailey said. “If that does shift, we can get someone across the Perth, and their preparation would look a little bit different, but that’d be okay.”
Australia will have a different coaching staff for the T20I series as well with head coach Andrew McDonald, batting coach Michael Di Venuto and bowling coach Daniel Vettori all having a short break ahead of the Test series.
Australia’s T20I squad vs Pakistan: Sean Abbott, Xavier Bartlett, Cooper Connolly, Tim David, Nathan Ellis, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Aaron Hardie, Josh Inglis, Spencer Johnson, Glenn Maxwell, Matthew Short, Marcus Stoinis, Adam Zampa
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