Australia has assembled their final squad in Barbados, setting the stage for their 2024 T20 World Cup journey. Some Australian players, like Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, and Glenn Maxwell, also joined late because they left for Australia for some days during the Indian Premier League (IPL) playoffs in 2024. Starc’s reverse-swinging express pace and Cummins’ solid all-rounder role represented their respective franchises, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), in the IPL final, where KKR emerged champions. Maxwell and his Royal challengers Bangalore (RCB) were ousted in the eliminator round of the tournament.
Australia joins several other nations in starting the World Cup campaign when it faces Oman on Wednesday (Thursday IST). Pat Cummins of the SRH cricket team had gone back home after the loss in the final held in Chennai. According to cricket. com. au, the Australian Test captain, for instance, was wasting time in transit from Sydney to the Caribbean for two days. Misfortune struck sometime in this period as some of his belongings, including luggage, disappeared, only to be recovered later.
Starc and Maxwell also had come back to Australian squad immediately after IPL. They took a longer time to get to Barbados but had to spend a night in Los Angeles before continuing to Miami, where they again spent the night.
The constraints exhibited themselves when Marcus Stoinis failed to take part in a warm-up encounter against the West Indian team in Trinidad because his cricket equipment did not get to the Caribbean nation! Consequently, Australia has a poor preparation of having only nine players on its team for the warm-up matches. Travis Head, who was part of Sunrisers Hyderabad, and Cameron Green, who was with Royal Challengers Bangalore, were already in Barbados with the team even though they played in the IPL playoffs.
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