'Quite rightly nervous': Quarantine conundrum looms

Australia coach Matthew Mott concedes he will not be able to field his strongest XI throughout the upcoming multi-format series against India as medical staff grapple with how to get their fast bowlers through the demanding schedule unscathed.

Twelve of Australia’s 18-player squad are currently in hard quarantine in Queensland, as is India’s entire squad, having arrived from Sydney and Melbourne – both COVID-19 hot spots – earlier this week.

They are due to be released seven days before the opening one-dayer in Mackay, and will play three ODIs, one Test and three T20Is in the space of just 20 days.

It is the first time either team has had to contend with a full fortnight in hard isolation, without training privileges, since the start of the pandemic.

Mott expressed his gratitude to the Queensland government for allowing his players to enter the state and get matches played, but admitted that having five of his six fast bowlers – Ellyse Perry, Annabel Sutherland, Tayla Vlaeminck, Maitlan Brown and Stella Campbell – stuck in their rooms for a fortnight was less than ideal.

"Our sports science people are quite rightly nervous,” Mott told 91.3 SportFM on Tuesday.

"Normally our bowlers try and build up gradually so they get more balls in the tank and they can prepare quite solidly.

"Here, they won’t bowl for 14 days and will go straight into a very congested schedule, so our management of the players has to be right on point.

"Not everyone is going to play every game, we’ve got 18 in our squad, and we’ve got some young players.

"The older more resilient players will find a way though because they’ve banked up that experience and their bodies are a bit stronger. But for the younger bowlers – Darcie Brown, Tayla Vlaeminck, Maitlan Brown – we’ve got to be very smart around how we integrate them into it."

The make-up of the Test bowling attack will be particularly tricky to manage given Australia’s women rarely play the longest format and are not conditioned to bowling long spells.

Sutherland is returning from a stress fracture to her upper leg that ruled her out of the series against New Zealand earlier this year, Brown is on the comeback trail from a severe hamstring injury while Vlaeminck is generally carefully managed after a series of major foot, knee and shoulder injuries.

"In an ideal world we’d have played the Test last to build up those loads gradually, but it’s in the middle," Mott continued.

"So there are different bowlers we’ll have to use in different formats and the consequence is we won’t be able to play our best team every game – that would be crazy from a player fatigue and management point of view.

"We’ll try and make it work but it’s going to be a really interesting series to see how we navigate around the complexities that will be thrown at us."

Australia were already planning to field a less experienced bowling attack than usual with spinner Jess Jonassen sidelined due to injury and Megan Schutt remaining in Adelaide after her wife Jess gave birth to the couple’s first child earlier this month.

The world’s top-ranked team have not played since their tour of New Zealand ended in April and had several winter camps cancelled due to border closures, but will have no cause to complain about a lack of cricket in the coming months with the WBBL to begin just days after the India series concludes, followed by the Ashes and ODI World Cup early next year.

"It’s going to be tough, it’s going to be exciting but it’s going to hit us hard," Mott said.

"We’ve gone from not a lot of cricket to a very busy schedule overnight."

CommBank Series v India

Australia squad: Meg Lanning (c), Rachael Haynes (vc), Darcie Brown, Maitlan Brown, Stella Campbell, Nicola Carey, Hannah Darlington, Ashleigh Gardner, Alyssa Healy, Tahlia McGrath, Sophie Molineux, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Georgia Redmayne, Molly Strano, Annabel Sutherland, Tayla Vlaeminck, Georgia Wareham

India Test and ODI squad: Mithali Raj (c), Harmanpreet Kaur (vc), Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Punam Raut, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Sneh Rana, Yastika Bhatia, Taniya Bhatia (wk), Shikha Pandey, Jhulan Goswami, Meghna Singh, Pooja Vastrakar, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Poonam Yadav, Richa Ghosh, Ekta Bisht.

India T20I squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Smriti Mandhana (vc), Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Sneh Rana, Yastika Bhatia, Shikha Pandey, Meghna Singh, Pooja Vastrakar, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Poonam Yadav, Richa Ghosh (wk), Harleen Deol, Arundhati Reddy, Radha Yadav, Renuka Singh.

Sep 21: First ODI, Great Barrier Reef Arena, Mackay

Sep 24: Second ODI, Great Barrier Reef Arena, Mackay (D/N)

Sep 26: Third ODI, Great Barrier Reef Arena, Mackay

Sep 30 – Oct 3: Test match, Metricon Stadium, Gold Coast (D/N)

Oct 7: First T20, Metricon Stadium, Gold Coast

Oct 9: Second T20, Metricon Stadium, Gold Coast

Oct 10: Third T20, Metricon Stadium, Gold Coast