‘Ultra reliable’ Hussey’s T20 run may be over, says skipper Bailey

Sydney: Australia Twenty20 captain George Bailey has said squads for this summer`s three T20I internationals would be selected with an eye on the next World T20, to be held in Bangladesh in April 2014, which has effectively ruled out 37-year old Mike Hussey’s involvement in the shortest version of the game.

Australia is due to play only 13 Twenty20 matches in the 18 months until the next international tournament. Hussey deserves to remain in the team on form, as he scored 155 runs in the tournament at an average of 77.5 and strike-rate of 123.02, but Bailey said the veteran’s hefty workload, combined with team planning goals, would probably set off a search for a substitute No.3 batsman. “There`s no doubt the team will start to focus on 2014. It will be about developing a group,” a leading daily quoted Bailey, as saying. “In that time I think we only play [13] games so we don`t want to spend too many of those series mucking around with different teams. We want to get the structure right with the group we think will take us to success in Bangladesh,” he added. “Mike will be an interesting one. The other thing to take into account with him that if he is going to be playing all of the Test and one-day cricket too then come the back end of the summer there`s probably no need for him to be playing,” he said. Bailey added: “If he`s still playing in 2014 then we`ll know exactly what he does. He`s done that a bit in the T20 format, sat out then come back in.” ANI