Australia have been dealt a massive blow ahead of T20 World Cup that is set to commence from June 2 (as per Indian Standard Time). Their skipper Mitchell Marsh won't be bowling at least in their opening game against Oman scheduled on June 6 at the Kensington Oval, Bridgetown in Barbados. Marsh is yet to recover completely from his hamstring injury sustained in the Indian Premier League (IPL) this year while playing for Delhi Capitals.
In fact, Marsh also played as a pure batter in the two warm-up matches against Namibia and West Indies scoring 18 and 4 runs respectively. Moreover, he didn't take the field for the full bowling innings as well in the warm-ups as Matthew Wade took over the captaincy responsibility from him. Meanwhile, Australia head coach Andrew McDonald confirmed the development related to the captain's injury recovery while confirming that Marsh will definitely play the first game but is not up to the mark when it comes to bowling.
"For Mitch, (the warm-up games) was about ticking off where his body was at. He fielded more overs tonight (in the warm-up against West Indies), he was able to move more freely, so he's building a little bit of confidence there. It looks as though he's all set for the first game. The second part is just when the bowling comes back online. It won't be the first game," McDonald told cricket.com.au.
Australia conceded 257 runs against the West Indies in their second warm-up game but with only nine players available, they did feel the absence of their key players who are yet to join the team having played the Indian Premier League for two months. But McDonald is not worried much about the group spending time together ahead of the mega event.
"It was by design, in terms of when we were getting people back after the IPL; we were well aware we weren't going to get the squad together until the first of next month. We've got some things in place where we'll bring the group together, we'll work through our plans leading into Oman and there's a bit of space between that game and (playing) England," the Aussie head coach added.
