Aussie stars face uncertain build-up to World Cup bid

Australia's T20 World Cup players face an uncertain build-up to the tournament later this year with the domestic schedule in limbo and the status of a handful of IPL deals yet to be finalised.

David Warner, Glenn Maxwell and Steve Smith are all expected to head to the IPL and Josh Hazlewood is understood to be close to committing to the tournament as well, but Kane Richardson has chosen to stay at home and Adam Zampa is still yet to finalise his plans.

IPL franchises must confirm their squads for the rescheduled tournament by tomorrow and a handful of previously uncontracted Australians have attracted interest after some international players indicated they won't be available.

This has left the bubble-weary Australians facing a choice between high-quality cricket at the IPL or spending time with family at home but with no certainty of where and when the domestic season will start.

The Marsh One-Day Cup is scheduled to begin in three weeks in Perth and Melbourne, but the current border restrictions make that unlikely. The prospect of having to enter another bio-secure bubble in order to start the season is unsurprisingly not appealing for those players who are currently in hotel quarantine following the tour of Bangladesh.

Players will be understandably desperate to see family when they're released from their hotel in Adelaide on Wednesday, but for Sydney-based players like Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc returning home would effectively rule them out of the start of the domestic season.

Complicating matters for Starc is the uncertainty over Australia's women's series against India next month, which will determine where his wife Alyssa will spend the next six weeks. The NSW-based women's team players are expecting to fly to Melbourne on Sunday to begin quarantine ahead of a campaign that currently remains scheduled to start in Sydney on September 19, although that is likely to change, before games in Melbourne and Perth.

Those who do go to the IPL also face the prospect of sitting on the bench with their respective franchises. Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis appear the only certain starters for their IPL clubs among the Australian World Cup contingent, with Warner and Smith having both been dropped by their teams earlier this year.

Two players with some level of certainty about their pre-Cup plans are skipper Aaron Finch and vice-captain Pat Cummins, who won't play any domestic cricket in the coming weeks due to injury and paternity leave respectively. 

New selection chair George Bailey conceded on Thursday that how much cricket the Australian squad will be able to play in the lead-up to the World Cup is unclear.

"We absolutely have full trust that the IPL will be good prep," he said.

"We're throwing a bit of faith in the franchises that they will pick our players so they are getting those games, and bat and bowl them in the exact roles that we'd like them to for the Australian team, that would be also great. But I'm not sure we'll get any say in that," he added with wry humour.

"The conditions will be so similar, so there's going to be some huge benefits for that.

"We don't know what the domestic schedule is going to look like, so we've got to be flexible around what cricket guys can play. When you look through that squad, it's an experienced T20 list so I don't think not having played T20 cricket for a little period of time will affect them.

"Like any ICC event, there will be a couple of warm-up games. And one of the advantages of taking a slightly bigger squad (of 18 players) is that you can manufacture some scenarios in centre-wicket (practices), game-like scenarios."

There is also uncertainty about the impact the World Cup will have on preparations for the one-off Test against Afghanistan in Hobart, which starts on November 27. Should either team make the World Cup final on November 14, the Test would overlap with the mandatory two weeks of quarantine for all international arrivals into Australia.

In June, CA said they were working with state and federal governments on quarantine arrangements ahead of the international summer, including the possibility the Hobart Test could be played in a tightly controlled bubble to allow players to take part during their two-week quarantine period.

Australia's squad were prevented from training for the first week of their current quarantine in Adelaide despite a previous understanding from SA Health that they would be allowed to do so, although that has now been relaxed, with players allowed out to train on Thursday afternoon.

There remains a possibility that all-format players like Starc, Hazlewood, Smith and Warner would not be granted permission to play in that Test match after the World Cup.

When asked if he was confident of picking his World Cup players to face Afghanistan, Bailey replied: "That's certainly one permutation of how it might play out.

"There seems to be moving parts with that at the moment. We're preparing, all things being equal, that we'll have a full-strength Test squad to select from.

"If it happens that we get as deep into this T20 tournament as we'd like to and this looks challenging around quarantines and the exemptions that will be required around that, then we'll deal with that at the time.

"If that's the case, there will be great opportunities for some others."

2021 Men's T20 World Cup key info

Australia's squad

Aaron Finch (c), Ashton Agar, Pat Cummins (vc), Josh Hazlewood, Josh Inglis, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Kane Richardson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade, David Warner, Adam Zampa. Travelling reserves: Dan Christian, Nathan Ellis, Daniel Sams

Australia's matches

October 23v South Africa in Abu Dhabi (2pm local time, 9pm AEDT)

October 28v Qualifier A1 in Dubai (6pm local time, 1am Oct 29 AEDT)

October 30v England in Dubai (6pm local time, 1am Oct 31 AEDT)

November 4v Qualifier B2 in Dubai (2pm local time, 9pm AEDT)

November 6v West Indies in Abu Dhabi (2pm local time, 9pm AEDT)

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL 2021 ICC T20 WORLD CUP SCHEDULE

How teams are grouped

Round 1

Group A: Sri Lanka, Ireland, Netherlands, Namibia

Group B: Bangladesh, Scotland, Papua New Guinea, Oman

Super 12s

Group 1: England, Australia, South Africa, West Indies, A1, B2

Group 2: India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan, B1, A2