As the next men's ODI World Cup approaches fast, Australia are gearing to play a crucial three-match ODI series against Pakistan under the leadership of Mitchell Marsh. The series comes at a crucial time for the defending champions as they fine-tune their combinations in order to build a formidable squad. However, the Australian squad travelling to Pakistan will be without the big names like Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc.
Moreover, they have also been rested from the ODI series against Bangladesh, which will follow the Pakistan assignment. The trio played their crucial roles in Australia's victory at the ODI World Cup 2023 in India. Despite their absence, Australia head coach Andrew McDonald has said that the trio remain central to the team's future plans. McDonald explained that the decision was made purely with long-term fitness and workload management plans in mind.
"You look at our fast bowling cohort to get to 2027, I think people look at the immediate games in front of them and go, okay, well why aren't they playing there?" McDonald said as quoted by ESPNcricinfo. "But if you actually work back from 2027 and look what we've got coming up, this is the last significant break that we get to be able to invest into their bodies to set themselves up to get all the way through 2027. So we are planning for them to be there in 2027. I think there needs to be a lot of trust in what we're doing to be able to get them there. It's going to be a significant challenge.
McDonald asserted that neither Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc had expressed any desire to miss the tour. But Cricket Australia believed that it was crucial to provide rest to all the three players considering the action-packed international schedule ahead.
"I think there's almost a misconception that the players are sort of picking and choosing as to where they play and which series they play in. These decisions are made around the management of what we have coming up within the schedule, and they don't choose that. We work with them on it.
"Those players want to play. We just don't feel like it's the best time for them to play, fill that extra month up, and then we actually start chasing our tails a little bit as we go into what we know we've got coming up. So I just want to dispel that sort of narrative out there around players picking and choosing."
McDonald also emphasised that Australia had a demanding schedule ahead of the ODI World Cup; still, Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc played their key roles in Australia's victory.
"We have done this before, in 2023. That was 19 Tests, so this is two more. The biggest difference there is we're four years older, so that creates another layer and another challenge within that."