Josh Inglis earns full central contract as Cricket Australia announces 20-man contract list for 2022-23 season
Cricket Australia have announced the list of players to earn central contracts for the men's team ahead of the upcoming season. Seven players earned upgrades, while four missed out from the one named last year.
The 20-men contract list sees a new name in Josh Inglis, a keeper-batter who has made it to all three squads in the last six months.
The West Australian made his T20I debut against Sri Lanka in the five-game series in February but is yet to play Test and ODI cricket. However, pace bowlers Jhye Richardson and Kane Richardson lost their contracts.
Richardson played both Test and T20 cricket during the summer. However, chief selector George Bailey rested him from the Pakistan tour, citing a need to manage his workload. The two Richardsons joined former Australian Test Tim Paine and retired pacer James Pattinson to lose their central contracts.
Bailey trusts the group of 20 players to give their best across formats in what he expects to be a challenging period of cricket. The former Australian limited-overs captain said it was challenging to handpick 20 players from the options.
"We believe this group provides us great coverage and versatility across all formats while others, as we saw in the past year, will continue to get opportunities to play a big part. With a tour of Sri Lanka, a home World Cup, home summer and tour of India there is an enormous amount of cricket to be played where the strength of our squads and depth will be challenged, Bailey stated, as quoted by cricket.com.au.
"To contract just 20 players was challenging given the number of key series and the cycle of upcoming T20 and one-day World Cups, all of which will require varying skill sets and combinations."
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Scott Boland, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Mitchell Marsh, Marcus Stoinis and Mitchell Swepson earned upgrades due to their magnificent performances throughout the year in various formats. Kane Richardson's future, meanwhile, remains doubtful despite being a key part of the setup.
The right-arm speedster didn't play a game in the 2021 T20 World Cup and missed the tours of the West Indies and Bangladesh before that. Paine, who resigned as captain before the home summer last year, could soon announce his retirement.
Cricket Australia men's contract list 2022-23
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Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner, Adam Zampa.