Australia's pace spearhead drafted into T20 side after Billy Stanlake ruled out with ankle injury
Starc gets T20 call-up for Sydney decider
Australia have drafted pace ace Mitchell Starc into their side for the third and final Gillette T20 international in Sydney after Billy Stanlake was ruled out of the match.
Starc last played a T20 for Australia in September 2016, against Sri Lanka in Colombo. His last T20 match for Australia on home soil was at the SCG in February 2014 against England.
Stanlake was a late scratching from the starting XI for Friday night's rain-affected match at the MCG when he strained his ankle during a warm-up mishap. The Queenslander injured his ankle on the boundary line while doing catching practice warming up for the match that was eventually washed out, and was today ruled out of the series finale by captain Aaron Finch.
Starc had played for the NSW Blues in their JLT Sheffield Shield drought-breaking win against Queensland in Canberra last week, and had been scheduled to sit out of next week's first-class match as he ramped up preparation for the first Domain Test in Adelaide from December 6.
However the absence of Stanlake has altered those plans, with the left-armer linking up with the T20 squad in Sydney today, Finch confirmed.
"(Starc has) got so much experience in the limited-overs games as well and we’ve seen how dominant he can be when he gets it right with the ball," Finch said.
"We’ll have a look at the wicket this afternoon and discuss the side but coming straight off a Shield game with an eye on the first Test, his preparations will be really good."
Stanlake, who has a moderate grade ankle sprain, is expected to return in the KFC BBL with the Adelaide Strikers. He had been penciled in to retain his spot in the Australia team at the MCG after taking 1-27 off three overs in the series-opener in Brisbane on Wednesday.
Image Id: 0FB5E9B114104BBD9494165FD1FAEF89 Image Caption: A very, very late scratching!"He started to find some really good rhythm in Brisbane and he’s been around the mark for quite a while," Finch said of the Queensland quick.
"He obviously had a tough tour of England and to come back and have that time to get his body right and start to feel good again, it's unfortunate he tripped on the rope and went straight over (on the ankle."
Finch only found out about Stanlake's injury as he was "halfway out for the toss". It was initially not thought to be serious but scans on Saturday showed enough for medical staff to rule him out of the third T20 match. The two-metre tall Queenslander was spotted running on the MCG shortly after the toss.
Nathan Coulter-Nile was brought into the side in Stanlake's place for the Melbourne match, and the Western Australian smashed his first ball for a straight six to add some late gloss to a below-par batting performance. He hit a second six over the fence but exited for 18 from 9 balls
Australia's innings was curtailed by Melbourne's weather after 19 overs, with the home side 7-132.
Australia cannot lose the series against the No.2 ranked T20 side India following their win in Brisbane and the Melbourne wash-out. The Aussies sit third on the ICC's rankings and will be hoping for an outright result in an uninterrupted match on Sunday.
Australia put together a convincing performance against India on Wednesday, with Glenn Maxwell hitting 46 off 24 balls before Marcus Stoinis kept his cool with a clutch final over.
Gillette T20s v India
November 21: Australia won by four runs (DLS method)
November 23: MCG
November 25: SCG
Australia T20 squad: Aaron Finch (c), Alex Carey, Ashton Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Chris Lynn, Glenn Maxwell, Ben McDermott, D'Arcy Short, Billy Stanlake, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye, Adam Zampa.
India T20 squad: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (vc), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Dinesh Karthik, Rishabh Pant (wk), Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Washington Sundar, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav, Khaleel Ahmed.