Australia captain Mitchell Marsh hopes to return to bowling at the back end of the T20 World Cup and will start the tournament as pure batter. Marsh is still recovering from his hamstring injury that ruled him out of the Indian Premier League in April this year. He returned to action for Australia in the warm-up games against Namibia and West Indies but did not bowl in either match. “Yeah, I won’t be bowling early on in the tournament. And I always joke as captain – I hope I won’t bowl late in the tournament either. But yeah, I’ll progress that slowly over the next 10-12 days and hopefully be available for them at the back end of the tournament,” ESPNcricinfo quoted Marsh as saying.

Australia were short of players in both warm-up matches with only nine players available from their 15-member squad. They even had to rope in substitutes from the coaching staff on the field comprising head coach Andrew McDonald, batting coach Brad Hodge, fielding coach Andre Borovec and national selector George Bailey.

Travis Head, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Glenn Maxwell, Cameron Green and Marcus Stoinis didn’t travel with the Australia squad due to their involvement in the IPL playoffs.

Marsh said Starc and Maxwell will join the squad soon and then they will have all 15 players available for the first game against Oman in Bridgetown on June 5.

“For me, it’s really easy. We really value a bit of family time. The guys have obviously been at the IPL, which I think is great preparation for a World Cup. And then, yeah, just the value of seeing their families and getting them in their own bed for one or two nights is really important. As a whole, we’ve all bought into that and it’s really easy to do,” Marsh said.

“We have still got (Mitchell) Starc and Maxi (Glenn Maxwell) to arrive this morning, or lunchtime. But after that we are all here. I think for the guys to get a couple of days at home is really important for us as a group and for them personally. Obviously, it takes a few days to get here from Australia so that adds a few challenges but they’ll be ready to go come the 5th,” he added.

When asked about the learnings from the warm-up matches, Marsh said, “I think we got exactly what we needed to get out of those games. Obviously, Hodgey won’t be available for selection, not quite up to it (laughs). So that was disappointing for him, he misses out.

“But yeah, for the guys who have had time off at home, to come back and get a bit of game time, that’s really all I needed from those practice games. So we certainly feel like we’re ready to go now.”

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