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Shane Warne has picked his preferred World Cup squad, and it's peak Shane Warne

9th April, 2019
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9th April, 2019
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Ah, Warnie. Never change.

He might be Australia’s greatest ever bowler but cricket fans in the land down under will be thanking their lucky stars Shane Keith Warne isn’t a selector.

As Warne tends to do, he has taken to Twitter to run us through his preferred Cricket World Cup squad.

Most of the squad is actually not all that far off the mark. The legendary leggie has included David Warner and Steve Smith, who are both in hot form playing the Indian Premier League.

A vast majority of punters would agree their selections are going to happen, like it or not, with bans from the ball-tampering incident in South Africa last year finally over.

Captain Aaron Finch is there in his squad, as are all-rounders Glenn Maxwell, Ashton Turner and Marcus Stoinis, while the bowling attack of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Jhye Richardson, Adam Zampa, Nathan Lyon and Nathan Coulter-Nile just about picks itself.

But then things start to get a bit weird.

Despite not being picked in any of Australia’s last 15 ODI matches, Warne has had no trouble in re-calling D’Arcy Short to his squad.

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Short had a good Big Bash League for the Hobart Hurricanes and generally a strong summer, but to suggest a man who has just played four ODIs for 83 runs and regularly struggles to get going in T20 international cricket is going to be in the 15-man squad for the World Cup just doesn’t make sense.

What makes it even more baffling is that to include Short, as well as the formerly suspended duo, Warne has left out Usman Khawaja and Peter Handscomb.

Khawaja has had a phenomenal start to 2019 in limited overs cricket, dominating in India and the United Arab Emirates against Pakistan and scoring 769 runs at 59.15.

Handscomb’s omission could possibly be a little more palatable, but given there is only one keeper in the squad (Alex Carey), and the World Cup could potentially be 11 matches long, not having a back-up is a risk.

Warne isn’t the only former player to put D’Arcy Short in his World Cup squad though, with Ian Healy also saying he would take the big-hitting top order batsman to England.

Shane Warne’s squad
David Warner, D’Arcy Short, Aaron Finch, Steve Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Jhye Richardson (if fit), Adam Zampa, Shaun Marsh, Nathan Lyon, Ashton Turner, Nathan Coulter-Nile.

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