With James Pattinson re-aggravating his back injury, the chances of Western Australian pacer Jason Behrendorff to make his international debut in the opening T20 of the three-match series against India to be played on Sunday have been boosted by many folds.
Pattinson's injury setback means Australia's fast bowling order has been reshuffled ahead of the Ashes and Behrendorff will no doubt be considered for a Test debut should further injury strike the key trio of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins this summer.
"It was very unfortunate for James and he's been working really hard to get back," Behrendorff said in Ranchi on Thursday.
"It's one of those frustrating things as a fast bowler, you're never quite sure when something's around the corner like that," he added.
The 27-year-old further said that he has worked very hard and hopefully, he would be able to play at least one of these three T20 matches against India.
"I am 100 percent focused on these three games and making my debut out here," he said.
Australia were comprehensively beaten 1-4 in the recently concluded five-match ODI series and would be looking for a much better performance when they face the Men in Blue in the shortest version of the game.
When asked about the morale of the team, the right-arm pacer said, "The morale in the team is very good. The boys that played in the ODI series had a couple of days off and they really had a good time relaxing and recovering from that (ODI series debacle)."
"There are five of us who have just joined the squad for the T20s. So, we are full of energy and ready to go and really looking forward to an exciting series," he added.
Speaking about the change in attitude after the ODI series defeat, he said, "Yeah, that is something we speak about having a good attitude, making sure that we are doing things we can to stay upbeat and positive all the time."
"We know how good all are players are and that everyone works really hard and make sure that they are performing their best at every opportunity they get. There are no concerns there and all the guys have done everything they need to do to be able to be ready to go," he added.
Australia T20 squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner, Jason Behrendorff, Dan Christian, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Patrick Cummins, Aaron Finch, Travis Head, Moises Henriques, Glenn Maxwell, Tim Paine, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa.
India T20 squad: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Axar Patel.
T20 Fixtures:
October 7: JSCA International Stadium, Ranchi
October 10: Barsapara Stadium, Guwahati
October 13: Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad.
(With ANI Inputs).
