Australia name 26-player preliminary squad for England tour

Australia have taken their first step towards returning to international cricket. They have announced a preliminary  26-player squad with an eye on the upcoming tour of England in September. Australia are scheduled to play a limited-overs series against the ODI World Champions. The squad also consists of three uncapped cricketers.

JUST IN: Australia have named a huge 26-man group with an eye on a UK tour.

DETAILS: https://t.co/xNpOVT732I pic.twitter.com/umGMvbavbT

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) July 16, 2020

National selector Trevor Hohns shared his views on the preliminary squad.

“This preliminary list covers the contingencies of playing One-Day Internationals and T20 Internationals in bio-secure hubs with the likely prospect of not being able to bring in replacements should the tour proceed. The preliminary list includes several exciting young players who have recently excelled at state level and in the BBL… [and] are among those we would like to develop further as we believe they have a bright future in Australian cricket. The preliminary list also has a view towards the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup and in the longer term the 2023 ICC World Cup,” Hohns said.

From the squad, Daniel Sams, Riley Meredith and Josh Philippe are three players who are yet to represent Australia. Peter Handscomb, Shaun Marsh and Nathan Coulter-Nile missed out although they part of the 2019 World Cup campaign. Here is the full squad.

Australia’s preliminary squad:

Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Ben McDermott, Riley Meredith, Michael Neser, Josh Philippe, Daniel Sams, D’Arcy Short, Kane Richardson, Steven Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye, Matthew Wade, David Warner, Adam Zampa.