As Pat Cummins continues to remain in Australia, Steve Smith will serve as Australia’s captain throughout the next three-match ODI series against India. During the second Test of the series, Cummins returned to Australia to be with his ailing mother, who later passed away.

Head coach Andrew McDonald said, “Pat won’t be coming back; he’s still taking care of what’s happened back home. Our sympathies are with Pat and his family as they go through that grief process.

In Cummins’ absence, Smith took the team’s lead during the Test matches. For Cummins, no successor has been named. Josh Hazlewood and Jhye Richardson, who were injured and are currently out of the lineup, are already missed by the team. Sean Abbott was already listed on the squad, but Nathan Ellis had been called up to take his place. David Warner, Glenn Maxwell, and Mitchell Marsh will all make their comebacks to Australia after recent injury setbacks.

Rehearsal of Up Coming ODI World Cup

The series will serve as a warm-up for the ODI World Cup, which will be held in India in October this year.  Australia will be playing three ODI matches in India and against India which will help their players to get acquainted with the crowd, conditions, weather, and pitches.

“We’ve had a few discussions on the composition of the club we want to field. We attempted batting with a framework of eight hitters to get a little deeper. There will therefore be a variety of combinations as we approach the World Cup.

Many all-around players were selected for the roster; can they all play for the same team? Hence, we must respond to a couple of those queries,” stated McDonald.

Australia squad for ODI Series

Steve Smith (c), Alex Carey (wk), Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Marnus Labuschagne, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, David Warner, Adam Zampa

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