Australia omit star pace trio for England series

Australia's star pace trio of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc will not feature in the upcoming white-ball series against England.

The veteran seamers played all three Tests in the recent 2-1 series defeat by South Africa and have been rested for the three-match ODI series that starts in Perth on 13 November.

Cummins and Hazlewood have also been left out for the five-match T20 series that begins on 21 November, while Starc, 36, has already retired from the format.

Fast bowler Mahli Beardman, 21, has been named in both squads and could make his international debut in ODIs, while uncapped wicketkeepers Sam Harper and Lachlan Shaw have been included for the T20s.

Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis and Matt Renshaw, who also played in the South Africa Tests, are included for the ODIs but do not feature in the T20 squad.

Although Cummins, 33, formally remains the ODI captain, he has only played one 50-over fixture since November 2024 and Mitchell Marsh, his frequent deputy and Australia's T20 skipper, will step in again for the longer format.

Seamer Nathan Ellis, a white-ball regular, is only included in the T20 squad after suffering a side strain on the September ODI tour of South Africa and Zimbabwe, while fellow pacer Jack Edwards is named in both squads after making his one-day debut on that trip.

All-rounder Liam Scott, who played one 50-over match against Bangladesh in June, is recalled to the ODI squad, while spinners Nikhil Chaudhary and Joel Davies, who both made their only international appearances on the T20 leg of the same tour, are selected for the 20-over fixtures.

Top-order batters Jake Fraser-McGurk and Mitchell Owen return to the T20 squads after not featuring in recent series, while middle-order finisher Tim David is only selected for the shorter format despite recently returning to 50-over domestic cricket after an absence of four years.

ODI and T20 squads: Mitchell Marsh (capt), Xavier Bartlett, Mahli Beardman, Jack Edwards, Spencer Johnson, Adam Zampa

ODI squad only: Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Ollie Peake, Matt Renshaw, Liam Scott

T20 squad only: Nikhil Chaudhary, Tim David, Joel Davies, Nathan Ellis, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Sam Harper, Mitchell Owen, Lachlan Shaw

Following the final England T20 on 2 December, Australia will start a heavy pre-Ashes Test schedule in which Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood, 35, will be expected to feature frequently.

They begin a four-match home Test series against New Zealand on 9 December before travelling for a five-Test series against India that starts on 21 January.

They then face England in a one-off Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground from 11 March, celebrating 150 years of Test cricket, prior to the Indian Premier League.

Australia could also conceivably reach the World Test Championship final at the Oval on 9 June, shortly before the five-game Ashes series that runs from 18 June to 2 August.

The ODI World Cup in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe will then begin on 7 October, with their veteran pace trio light on one-day matches since they all featured in the last final win in November 2023.

Cummins has played in three ODIs since that match, while Hazlewood and Cummins have respectively featured in 14 and 11 of Australia's 35 games in that period.

They have played just one game together since the World Cup, against Pakistan in Adelaide in November 2024, and all three missed the Champions Trophy in February last year.

Ellis has played in 23 of Australia's 50-over games since the World Cup, while fellow seamers Xavier Bartlett and Spencer Johnson, who feature in both squads to face England, have played in 12 and seven ODIs in their careers.

Joining them are 26-year-old Edwards, who played two ODIs against South Africa, and Beardman, who was first called-up into an Australia squad for a white-ball tour of England in 2024.

Both Edwards and Beardman have appeared in a single T20, against Pakistan in Lahore in January, and the latter was a member of Australia's highly-rated 2024 under-19 World Cup winning squad.