All of Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were expectedly absent in Cricket Australia’s 20-strong list of nationally contracted players, announced on Wednesday, April 11.
The trio are currently serving bans for their roles in the ball-tampering incident during the Cape Town Test last month, and their exclusions allowed room for a new-look list of 20 players who will represent Australia’s men’s team across formats in the coming year.
Kane Richardson, Andrew Tye and Jhye Richardson, the fast bowlers, all-rounder Marcus Stoinis, and Alex Carey, the wicket-keeper, are the fresh faces in the list.
The injured duo of James Pattinson and Nathan Coulter-Nile missed out as well, along with the likes of D’Arcy Short, Chris Lynn and Adam Zampa.
With the international break on, a lot of these players are in the subcontinent, contesting the Indian Premier League. Australia will next tour England in June for a limited-overs series, comprising five ODIs and a one-off T20I.
Australia will then travel to Zimbabwe in July for a triangular T20I series against the home side and Pakistan.
Contracted players for 2018-19: Ashton Agar, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Tim Paine, Matthew Renshaw, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye.
