Aaron Finch has mentioned that the Australian players who have opted out of the upcoming tours of West Indies and Bangladesh may miss making it to the T20 World Cup squad. Seven players have taken their names back from the preliminary squad that was named to tour before the T20 World Cup.

David Warner, Jhye Richardson, Pat Cummins, Glenn Maxwell, Kane Richardson, Marcus Stoinis and Daniel Sams participated in the IPL 2021 and subsequently made themselves unavailable for the tours of West Indies and Bangladesh.

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Meanwhile, Steven Smith wasn’t selected in the squad because of the elbow injury that he sustained during the IPL 2021.

Australia will fly out to the Caribbean on Monday (June 28) for the July 10-25 tour with an 18-man squad short of up to seven front-line T20I players.

“Yeah, very realistic (to miss out of T20 World Cup). You have to go on current form, and you pick guys who are playing well. For guys to be on this tour, to get the first opportunity to really put their hand up and take a spot is what it’s about. It’s tough to ignore really good international performances. So yeah, absolutely, there’s going to be opportunities for guys to put their hand up and take spots,” Finch said on cricket.au.com.

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Finch last week said it had been a “long-term plan” for all-format stars Warner and Cummins, both among Australia’s highest-paid IPL players, to miss the 10 T20Is and three ODIs in the Caribbean and Bangladesh after that (pending confirmation). However, he was surprised when Maxwell, Jhye, Stoinis, and Kane decided to opt out as well.

Chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns had also implied that there is no assurance that some of the IPL returnees who have opted out of the white-ball tours of West Indies and Bangladesh would get an automatic spot in the T20 World Cup.