Melbourne [Australia], March 28 : Australia's men's selection chairman George Bailey has acknowledged that the Baggy Greens are looking for a third spinner for the upcoming T20 World Cup in the West Indies and USA.
Glenn Maxwell and Adam Zampa are the two established spinners for Australia and with the much awaited World Cup approaching, Bailey stated that Ashton Agar is firmly in the mix for the 15-player squad.
Agar was dropped from Australia's 23-member contract list, which was announced on Thursday. The pitches in the West Indies are likely to assist spinners, as Rehan Ahmed and Liam Livingstone were among the top-five wicket-takers in the T20I series with five and four scalps, respectively.
Along with Agar, experienced all-rounder Marcus Stoinis was also dropped from the squad. He has battled back injuries in recent times and was also part of Australia's winning ICC Men's Cricket World Cup squad last year. Bailey confirmed that the players are firmly in the mix for the 15-player World Cup squad.
"The balance of the squad will probably lend itself to having that second spinner there. It still seems hard for everyone to get their head around the fact Glenn Maxwell's a pretty handy white-ball spinner and we don't necessarily consider him a part-time option, he's one that we consider a frontline option," Bailey told reporters, as quoted from ICC.
"So 'Zamps' will clearly be there, and I think there will be an opportunity potentially for one more. We will come together at the end of April to put a squad together for that and both Stoin [Stoinis] and Ash Agar [Ashton Agar] will be firmly in the mix for the squad," he added.
Marcus Harris, pacer Michael Neser and recently retired star David Warner are other players to miss out on Cricket Australia's fresh contracts.
Cricket Australia contracted men's players 2024-25: Sean Abbott, Xavier Barlett, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Aaron Hardie, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Lance Morris, Todd Murphy, Jhye Richardson, Matt Short, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa.