Leading T20 team so challenging: Bailey

George Bailey says Australia's revolving door of players in the Twenty20 team and inconsistent approach to the format was part of the reason why he gave up the captaincy of the side almost two years ago.

The scarcity of scheduled T20 Internationals combined with a strong emphasis on claiming a WT20 title – the only major limited-overs tournament Australia is yet to win – has seen a seemingly endless parade of players tried in the shortest format.

Bailey led Australia in the 2012 and 2014 World T20 tournaments and had no less than 37 different teammates in his time as skipper.

After a disappointing exit in the group stages of the 2014 tournament in Bangladesh, the Tasmanian stood down as Australia's T20 captain to focus on red-ball cricket, and he said this week the lack of stability in selection made the role a tough one.

"I found it a really challenging format to captain just because the way it's so fragmented in terms of very rarely having access to the best team," Bailey told cricket.com.au in Guyana, where he's part of Australia's squad for the ODI tri-series in the West Indies.

"You mainly get your team together for the (WT20) so you just get no continuity.

"It's very hard to remember actually who was in your team for the last game. So in terms of leading the team I found that quite challenging and quite frustrating."

Quick Single: No Bailey a show of Aussie strength

Bailey captained Australia 27 times for 13 wins between 2012 and 2014. Since he stepped away from the leadership, Australia has played 15 T20s in the past two years.

The vast amount of time between international T20 series combined with an uncertainty around the best way to approach the format has resulted in a huge turnover of T20 players.

Including the very first Twenty20 international, between Australia and New Zealand in February 2005, when nicknames and novelty hair betrayed the seriousness with which players took the game, Australia has capped 83 players in 88 matches.

In the same period, Australia has played 286 ODIs and used 79 players – including 17 who were already capped – while in Test matches, 70 players have been used in Australia's 126 Test matches, including 52 proud new owners of Baggy Green caps.

The high turnover and vagaries of the international schedule helped shape Bailey's decision to step away from T20 internationals in September 2014.

"Just looking ahead in terms of where we were at that stage (in 2014), there were four series until the next World T20," Bailey said.

"I didn't think I was going to captain that side at the World T20, so it was an important time to be able to step back and let whoever was going to do it get a feel for it.

"And they ended up changing it anyway."

Aaron Finch replaced Bailey as the T20 captain, leading Australia to a six-wicket win against Pakistan in his captaincy debut in Dubai in October 14. But some untimely injury concerns and with Steve Smith in irrepressible form as captain of the Test and one-day teams, Australia stripped Finch of the captaincy a month out from the World T20 after six games in charge.

Bailey made history in 2012 when he captained Australia on his international debut in a T20 against India at the SCG.

Under his watch, Australia reached the semi-finals of the 2012 WT20 before going down to the West Indies and they were bundled out at the group-stage in a disappointing 2014 WT20 campaign.

Bailey hasn't played an international T20 match since stepping down as captain, but with a career ODI average north of 40 and a 761-run Sheffield Shield season (the fourth highest of last summer) under his belt, Bailey believes he still has plenty of cricket ahead of him.

"I would have really liked to have been part of the World T20 and I felt like I'd done everything I could to put my name there in front of the selectors," he said.

"But they went in a different direction, and that's alright, they're entitled to do that.

"You certainly sleep easier as a player knowing you've done everything you can and you haven't missed opportunities to put your name out there."