Australia fall short of players for T20 World Cup warm-ups against Namibia

Melbourne: Australia are facing a dearth of players for the T20 World Cup warm-up matches as sqaud members participating in the IPL will spend some time with family before joining the team in the Caribbean.

Australia are scheduled to play warm-up matches against Namibia on Tuesday and co-host West Indies on Thursday. They have only nine players available for the first warm-up match with captain Mitchell Marsh solely playing as a batter in the encounter.

The trio of Pat Cummins, Travis Head and Mitchell Starc were part of the IPL final in Chennai on Sunday and will spend a brief period with family before linking up with the World Cup squad.

Among those spending time at home are Glenn Maxwell and Cameron Green, who were part of Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s playoff run. When the Australian team travels to Barbados in preparation for their opening group game against Oman on June 5, those five are expected to arrive. Marcus Stoinis has yet to arrive in the Caribbean.

“It’s important to be flexible. Guys have been at the IPL. They’ve been playing a lot of cricket so we’ve prioritized giving them a couple of days at home,” cricket.com.au quoted Marsh as saying.  (IANS)

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