Australia should pick separate ODI and T20 squads

Since the completion of the 2019 World Cup, Australia has largely picked blanket white-ball squads intended to cover both formats rather than selecting distinct squads for the ODI and T20 cricket.

These squads have typically been T20 heavy in light of the upcoming world cups, meaning a number of fringe 50-over cricketers continue to be ignored.

Australia’s 50-over line-up is relatively consistent: Aaron Finch and David Warner are followed by Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, with a seam bowling all-rounder, Alex Carey and Glenn Maxwell rounding out the top seven. Adam Zampa is typically accompanied by Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, while Ashton Agar will likely come into calculations with the next ODI World Cup scheduled to be played in India.

When all players are available the T20-heavy squads make sense in light of such consistency. The issue is that Australia has little idea who will join the core group of players in a likely enlarged World Cup squad in 2023 and even less of an idea of who will replace them long term.

Finch and Warner are 34 years old, while Smith and Maxwell are both 32. At some point Australia needs to identify their replacements. The upcoming three-match series against the West Indies is the perfect opportunity to do so, with Smith, Warner, Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis all missing the tour. Labuschagne will also be absent, having been instructed to stay in the UK due to logistical challenges, which bizarrely didn’t impact Dan Christian and Ben McDermott, who were flown home to quarantine before joining the squad.

Aaron Finch and David Warner (David Rogers/Getty Images)

In short, the upcoming series is the perfect opportunity to test the next best 50-over batsmen. Despite doing everything it can to jeopardise the domestic 50-over competition, Australia has somehow produced a number of high-quality 50-over batsmen.

Players like Daniel Hughes, Peter Handscomb and Sam Heazlett should be playing in the upcoming series but aren’t part of the touring party.

Hughes has made an exceptional start to his 50-over career, averaging 56.88 from 30 List A games to date. He has six centuries and seven 50s in a 29-innings career. Last summer he made 160 runs at 53.33 in three domestic 50-over games after blasting 440 runs at 73.33 the summer before.

Hughes is clearly one of Australia’s best top-order batsmen in the 50-over format. While his age of 32 means he probably isn’t a long-term replacement for Finch or Warner, he is well equipped to serve as a reserve batsman at the next World Cup.

Heazlett too has developed a strong domestic record in the 50-over format. Despite struggling in first-class and T20 cricket, List A cricket suits the Queenslander’s game perfectly. In 23 List A matches he has more than 1000 runs at an average of 51.77, and he scores at better than a run a ball. His first ODI cap was grossly undeserved but a second would be a just reward for excellence at domestic level.

Handscomb would have been the ideal Smith replacement, having offered a dynamic option in the middle overs in his 2019 ODI stint, when he averaged 40.25 at a strike rate of close to a run a ball. In just four 50-over games last summer he compiled 299 runs, averaged more than 70 and scored at better than a run a ball. The next World Cup is in India, where conditions will suit Handscomb perfectly.

Instead the likes of Matthew Wade and Josh Philippe will fill the vacancies despite middling records in the 50-over format. Wade has played 94 ODIs and averages 25, while Philippe averages 30 at List A level to date.

The pair have clearly been included in the squad for their T20 exploits, with both having performed well for their BBL sides in recent years.

This is why separate squads should be picked, albeit with significant overlap. Having separate squads does not mean players cannot play both formats; it merely means that an identical squad should not be selected for two different forms of cricket. Wade and Philippe shouldn’t be playing ODI cricket. Hughes, Heazlett and Handscomb should.

The same applies to the bowlers. The likes of Riley Meredith and Wes Agar have been selected for the upcoming tour on the basis of BBL performances, while Joel Paris, who was the leading wicket-taker in last summer’s Marsh Cup, has been left at home. Paris takes his List A wickets at 20 and is also handy with the bat, while Meredith and Agar both leak runs and average mid-30s with the ball in 50-over cricket.

This is not to say that Wade, Philippe, Meredith and Agar don’t deserve their place on the tour – they do, but only for the T20 component.

Joel Paris (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

This may not seem important, as none of these players are first choice anyway, but it matters. Reserve players are vital in World Cup squads. When Stoinis was injured at the 2019 World Cup, Shaun Marsh was Australia’s only replacement. Marsh’s excellent ODI form warranted a place in the squad, but he was ill-equipped to replace Stoinis. A poorly balanced squad forced Australia to replace a lower-order hitter who can bowl with a top-order accumulator who can’t.

At the same tournament an injury to Jason Roy saw James Vince fill in for England in a three-game stint which almost ended the host nation’s tournament.

Swap Roy for Warner or Finch, and who opens the batting for Australia in the event of an ill-timed World Cup injury?

Utilising opportunities to play the standout domestic one-day batsmen could help Australia to not only answer this question but also have confidence in the ability of the replacement.

There are ample opportunities to test replacements before the tournament begins. Last year Smith missed a three-game series against England with concussion, and Warner missed the final ODI against India with a hamstring injury. Now half of the top order is unavailable.

Every time a vacancy emerges Australia should take the opportunity to get games into Heazlett, Hughes or Handscomb rather than those competing for a T20 World Cup spot. All it requires is finding a few extra seats on the plane in order to send some ODI specialists on dual-format white-ball tours.

A World Cup cycle is a four-year process whereby teams establish not only their best 11 but also the players best equipped to replace them.

Last cycle Australia wasted three years before scrambling together a team at the last minute. They left out Hazlewood and had no idea who their third seamer was, culminating in a bowler-heavy squad with no reserve wicketkeeper or all-rounder and only one reserve batsman. It was not only a lesson in how not to pick a World Cup squad but also a lesson in the importance of utilising the four years prior to the tournament.

Australia cannot wait for two T20 World Cups to finish before turning their attention to the 50-over game. Preparation must start now, and a fundamental part of this is identifying who will be on the plane to India in 2023. Using the 50-over format to prepare for a T20 World Cup does little to achieve this long-term goal.