Breaking the norms followed by all participating countries ahead of ICC tournaments, Australia will not disclose its list of 30 probables for the Champions Trophy in England starting June 8.
According to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald , CA had approached the International Cricket Council for clarification over the rules about squad announcement and requested that the 30-man list of probables, which will be pruned to 15 in a month’s time, not be made public.
The newspaper said that the CA has got permission from the ICC to keep secret its list of 30 players, bucking a dominant worldwide trend of disclosure.
Before every major ICC tournament — World Cup, World T20, Champions Trophy — participating nations must submit a preliminary squad of 30 two months beforehand, and then trim that squad to 15 a month later. The squads for the Champions Trophy, an eight-nation 50-over tournament to be held in England, are due to be submitted to the ICC by the weekend.
CA will comply with that ruling, but with an agreement from the ICC’s operations division that the list will not be disclosed, the newspaper report said.
Pakistan has already released its list of 30. Other participating countries are expected to do so by the end of the week.
According to the report, CA’s rationale behind the non-disclosure this time was that its heavily scrutinised electors already have a firm idea of their final squad, meaning many in the list of 30 would not be in a realistic chance of selection.
An ICC spokesperson was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo that disclosure of the probables was not compulsory.
“Custom and practice is that countries announce their provisional squads 60 days before the first ball is scheduled to be bowled in the tournament. But this isn’t compulsory,” the ICC spokesperson said.
