Big Blow To Australia Ahead of Semis!

Australia faced a major blow ahead of the Champions Trophy’s big semifinal against India which will be held in Dubai tomorrow. The team’s opener Mathew Short has been ruled out of the rest of the tournament due to injury. Young all-rounder Cooper Connolly has been named as his replacement. Short picked up a quad injury during the match against Afghanistan and it was confirmed that he would not recover by the time of the semifinal. Thus, ICC approved Cricket Australia’s request to name Cooper as his replacement.

Cooper, who is one of the reserve subs, will be available for the team immediately. Although Australia has another opener, Jake Fraser McGurk, the team might favour Cooper due to his all-round abilities. The 21-year-old cricketer is a left-hand batter and left-arm orthodox bowler. In the match against New Zealand last night, Indian spinners bundled the opposition with their bowling.

Australia will also be looking forward to having more spin options in the team, apart from the specialist spinner Adam Zampa. Thus, Cooper’s spin abilities will be an advantage for him to get selected over JF McGurk.

If Australia wants to go with two specialist spinners, then it may go with Jake McGurk as an opening option and choose Tanveer Sangha as another specialist spinner.