Australia name 30-man WC squad

Australia have named a provisional 30-man squad for the Twenty20 World Cup in September with eight new faces with no international experience being included. They are George Bailey, Luke Butterworth and Brendan Drew, David Hussey, Andrew McDonald, Ashley Noffke, Luke Ronchi and Marcus North.

The now retired Glenn McGrath is the only player from the one-day World Cup squad to not be included.

Brett Lee is on track to take part in the World Cup after being ruled out of the one-day World Cup earlier this year due to an ankle injury.

National Selection Panel chairman Trevor Hohns said on the squad that “The squad of 30 recognises the outstanding performance of the ICC World Cup-winning squad earlier this year and at the same time the stand out performances of some of our young players in last year’s domestic KFC Big Bash Twenty20 competition.”

Hohns went onto say “We believe we’ve picked a squad of 30 specifically for the game of Twenty20 cricket with a view to Australia becoming a force in this form of the game.”

The selectors will name a final 15-man squad for the Twenty20 World Cup in mid July.

Australia’s preliminary ICC World Twenty20 squad
Ricky Ponting (captain), Adam Gilchrist, George Bailey, Nathan Bracken, Luke Butterworth, Stuart Clark, Michael Clarke, Dan Cullen, Brendan Drew, Brad Haddin, Shane Harwood, Matthew Hayden, Ben Hilfenhaus, Brad Hodge, Brad Hogg, James Hopes, David Hussey, Michael Hussey, Phil Jaques, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Andrew McDonald, Ashley Noffke, Marcus North, Luke Ronchi, Andrew Symonds, Shaun Tait, Adam Voges, Shane Watson, Cameron White