Australia to ramp up T20 World Cup prep with Bangladesh tour

Defending champions Australia eye to begin their T20 World Cup preparations with an upcoming tour to Bangladesh. The surface will assist the spinners as the ball is expected to keep low, something that the Australians are not habituated to play. The Alyssa Healy-led side will also play a full-fledged series against South Africa at home, which would also add to their preparations.

Speaking about the development, national selector Shawn Flegler stated that the goal is to understand the wickets in Bangladesh, in which the tournament will be played. He added that a couple of matches will be played on the grounds which will host the World Cup and that will benefit the team.

“We've got a couple of venues in Bangladesh that the World Cup will be played at so that will be part of the investigating during the tour, about how wickets are going to play,” Shawn Flegler, the national selector was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.

Sophie Molineux is highly rated in the Australian setup: Flegler

All-rounder Sophie Molineux is set to make her return after sitting out with an ACL injury in 2023. She will lead the Governor General’s XI against South Africa, which could help her get back into the scheme of things for Australia. Speaking about that, Flegler mentioned that the cricketer is highly rated in the Australian setup and is blessed to have so many spinners in the mix.

“She's been highly-rated by the Australian set-up for a long time and just great to have her back playing. It's pretty clear having a left-arm orthodox spinner playing international cricket is pretty good. We've been blessed with the amount of spin options we've had; we've had a left-arm spinner either Jess Jonassen or Soph involved in our World Cups over the last seven campaigns, so we'll see that continuing, I'm sure. It's going to be a tight squeeze over the next few series, but really blessed to have those options available to us,” Flegler said.