Ashes 2019: Australia Squad for the Second Test Against England

Australia have announced their squad for the second Test of Ashes 2019 against England which is scheduled to start from August 14 at Lord’s. This is a part of ICC World Test Championship. While the pace bowler James Pattinson has been left out of the squad, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood have been recalled. Pattinson played the first Test where they won by 251 runs at Edgbaston. He took two wickets there in three years.

“It’s nothing new,” Australia captain Tim Paine said to the reporters at Lord’s on Tuesday. “We’re really happy with the group of fast bowlers we’ve got. We think all of them can play a really important role in this series. We’ve spoken to them about making sure we have that core group of bowlers for the next two or three years.”

“James has come back off a really long lay-off, a really serious operation. We want to make sure he’s cherry-ripe for the next three or four years,” told Paine. “In the past we’ve got him back, keep using him and keep bowling him and eventually he’s broken again.”

“We’re really lucky we’ve got two bowlers on the sidelines who are world-class. He’s available for selection but we’ve decided to rest him for this game to make sure his long-term future is in really good shape,” he shared.

Mitchell Starc was the highest wicket-taker in the recently concluded ICC World Cup with 27 scalps. However, the final squad will be revealed in the time of toss.

“They (Hazlewood and Starc) are both world-class bowlers and when you leave guys like that out, particularly two of them at a time, you can see what sort of people they are and we’ve been really impressed with both of them,” said Tim Paine.

“We’ve had Josh Hazlewood on the A tour, the whole time priming himself to play in the Test and then when he missed out, obviously they were both disappointed but they are really both excellent team men,” added the captain before the second Test of Ashes 2019.

“It’s always nice from a captaincy and a leadership point of view when you’ve got two senior players who are world-class left out and they cop it on the chin, run drinks, and train their backsides off in the lunch hours and tea breaks. It sets a really good example for the rest of our team. Whichever one of those two we unleash tomorrow, they are certainly ready to go,” Paine concluded.

Australia Second Squad of Ashes 2019:

Tim Paine (C/WK), David Warner, Cameron Bancroft, Usman Khawaja, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Matthew Wade, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Peter Siddle, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood