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Carey hoping India showdown leads to reclaiming T20 spot

Australia wicketkeeper Alex Carey hopes lessons learned in a maiden IPL stint under the tutelage of Ricky Ponting will help him win back his role in Australia's T20 side

Alex Carey is hoping an extended stint under the watchful eye of Ricky Ponting and a continuation of his impressive one-day form will see him regain his spot in Australia's T20 side in the coming weeks against India.

Carey will enter the Dettol ODI Series against India, starting November 27, coming off the back of maiden international century in the final ODI of a three-match series against England in mid-September that Australia won 2-1.

It was an important, pressure-laden innings for Australia's gloveman, having just days earlier been stung by criticism from Aussie legend Adam Gilchrist, who said the South Australian needed more consistent output with the bat to fulfil the role of a wicketkeeping allrounder.

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Carey had earlier been dropped for the third T20 match of a truncated tour after two failures with the bat as Matthew Wade took the gloves, and knows there's no guarantees he'll have the position back when the T20s against India begin in Canberra on December 4.

"I guess my numbers in the past few T20s probably allowed the opening of the door for Wadey to come in," Carey said today via Zoom from his hotel quarantine in Sydney.

"I never like being left out of any team but it's allowed me to go away and develop.

"If it's a lower-order role or back up the top of the order, I'm doing everything I can to get back into that team and it's something I want to do.

"Since then I felt like I finished off that UK tour really strongly and took a lot out of the IPL working with (Ricky Ponting).

Ponting, who is helping train the quarantining Australian players who have returned from the Indian Premier League, was head coach of the Delhi Daredevils, where Carey had his first taste of the tournament this year.

"It was a great experience, my first opportunity to be part of IPL and to have Ricky as head coach of Delhi and a few other familiar faces in the squad made it a really enjoyable couple of months," Carey said.

"I learnt a lot, I speak to Ricky quite often. I was lucky enough to work with him through the World Cup last year and formed a good relationship. He was an amazing player, and is an amazing coach, and he picks up on little things really quickly.

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"We had a lot to talk about and although I didn’t play a lot of games it gave me a lot of opportunity to train and just work on a few little technical parts of my game which will hopefully help me grow and develop and have a successful summer."

Carey's maiden international century saw him hit 106 from 114 balls with seven fours and a pair of sixes against England at Old Trafford in September. Along with Glenn Maxwell, who also struck a century, the pair put on a record sixth-wicket partnership for Australia of 212 as they helped Australia to a series-clinching win that ended England's remarkable run of 13 unbeaten bilateral 50-over series victories.

That form, on top of his outstanding play at the World Cup in England 18 months ago, makes Carey a certain starter for Australia's ODI campaign against India.

But just three runs in the first two T20s against England, at a strike rate of 25, on top of three T20 innings in South Africa in February where he scored 7, 14 and 27, saw Carey jettisoned from the side.

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His T20 international career record is poor: 176 runs from 30 matches, an average of 12.57 and strike-rate of 116.55, primarily at No.6 although he has batted as high as No.3 on occasion, underline the vulnerability of his position.

For the Adelaide Strikers, who are expected to announce his contract extension in the coming days, he has 1,163 runs at 36.34 in 35 games.

With the rescheduled T20 World Cup just 12 months away, Carey knows he both has plenty of T20 cricket ahead, but also that time is running out to cement a spot in the Australia side.

"It's an exciting two weeks for myself as part of the white-ball group," said Carey.  

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"I think it's a great opportunity to continually work out the best line-up. Although it's 12 months away, you want to hone in on some specific roles and getting some form going into that World Cup.

"Coming up against England recently and India soon, we're playing the best in the world so it's a great indicator of where our T20 cricket is at.

"I think we're in a really good space with our white-ball team at the moment. We've made some huge gains."

Dettol ODI Series v India 2020

Australia ODI & T20 squad: Aaron Finch (c), Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Alex Carey , Pat Cummins (vc), Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques, Marnus Labuschagne, Glenn Maxwell, Daniel Sams, Kane Richardson, Steven Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, David Warner, Adam Zampa

India ODI squad: Virat Kohli (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Agarwal, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur.

First ODI: November 27, SCG, 2.40pm AEDT

Second ODI: November 29, SCG, 2.40pm AEDT

Third ODI: December 2, Manuka Oval, 2.40pm AEDT

*The matches and travel remain subject to any relevant government restrictions or requirements