Shaun Marsh is out of the World Cup with a fractured forearm. He was struck by a ball from Pat Cummins while batting in the nets at Old Trafford, two days before Australia’s final round-robin match against South Africa.
Peter Handscomb will replace Marsh in Australia’s squad.
Marsh wasn’t the only batsman to suffer a blow to the arm at Australia’s training session. In the same net, Glenn Maxwell was hit on the right forearm by a short ball from Mitchell Starc. Both batsmen aborted their net sessions and went for scans immediately.
The extent of damage Maxwell has suffered is not yet known, though Australia coach Justin Langer sounded hopeful that it wasn’t serious, while speaking to the media before the scan results came out.
“Shaun didn’t look too good to be honest so fingers crossed for him,” Langer said. “He got hit right on the end of the wrist so he looks in a pretty bad way unfortunately.
“Maxi got hit on the bottom of the forearm, as I understand. Initial reports are that hopefully he’ll be okay. We’ll have an x-ray and find out. Shaun looked worse than that.
“We’ll get some results soon and work it out from there.”
Handscomb is already in England with the Australia A team that is touring the country concurrently. The wicketkeeper-batsman narrowly missed out on a spot in Australia’s original World Cup squad, showing impressive form in the lead-up to the tournament but having to make way for the returns of Steven Smith and David Warner from their ball-tampering bans. Since the turn of the year, Handscomb has scored 479 ODI runs at an average of 43.54 and a strike rate of 98.15, with three fifties and a match-winning century in a chase of 359 against India.
More to follow…
Source: ESPN Crickinfo