Southampton: The vacancy left by former Australian captain Michael Clarke for their one-day series against England, to start on Thursday, is set to give George Bailey an opportunity to remind everyone why he made himself so indispensable to the one-day team.
As Australia steadily moved through the World Cup to be champions earlier this year Bailey found himself excluded once Clarke had recovered from his hamstring injury, even though his batting record in 50-over internationals stood up remarkably well compared to any predecessors at the same stage of their international career.
Bailey was captain as Australia began their World Cup campaign with a crushing victory over England, their imminent opponents for this post-Ashes series. He made a solid half-century in what proved to be his only match of the tournament, as Australia's next against Bangladesh in Brisbane was washed out and Clarke returned at Bailey's expense for the match against New Zealand a fortnight into the tournament.
Even before that first match, the highly regarded Tasmanian was accepting of the potential for him to lose not only the leadership of the team - to then full-time captain Clarke - but his place in the team too.
"It's a pretty basic equation there," he said in February, the day before Australia's first match. "I don't think I probably will [stay in the team once Clarke returns], but that's fine. I think it's great that he's on track."
The only time Bailey has featured for Australia since the World Cup was in the one-dayer against Ireland last week. Even though he failed in that match - he made 1 - his average of 41.18 after 58 matches rankings him comfortably in the top 10 of Australian batsmen to have played the same number of matches.
Even though Bailey has been Twenty20 captain for most of the past three and a half years - he resigned about a year ago to focus on regaining his Test spot, which he lost in early 2014 - the 32-year-old was passed over for Australia's one-off Twenty20 match against England on Monday, which they lost.
Bailey is set to be chosen for the opening match of the one-day series against England on Thursday, a day-night at Southampton's Ageas Bowl. Teammate Mitch Starc was unsurprised he had handled his exclusion for most of the World Cup without fuss.
"That's the sort of bloke George is, he's a very big team man," said Starc.
"He was fantastic through the World Cup playing that first game and not getting another opportunity. He did all the work he could to prepare for every game as if he was going to play. He was fantastic off the field with the young guys as well. He's got a huge amount of experience, he's played county cricket over here as well."
With Clarke having departed from all international cricket, Starc predicted Bailey, who lost the vice-captaincy to David Warner, would be an important ally for new captain Steve Smith and his new deputy, Warner.
"He's definitely someone that the guys look up to as part of that leadership group, ,along with having captained your country. He's probably someone Steve and Dave go to as well, along with Shane (Watson)," said Starc. "You've got three guys who have captained Australia there. George was fantastic through the World Cup and we'll need him again through this series as one of our experienced players and knowing the conditions being over here a few times and playing this year."
Half of England's 14-man squad for the upcoming series were not part of the failed World Cup campaign. Excluding Joe Root, who has been rested, most of the change has been focused on regeneration and choosing players better suited to the more aggressive style of play favoured by most successful limited-overs teams.
While Moeen Ali, who played in the World Cup, dominated Australia in the Twenty20 match on Sunday - he was man of the match for his unbeaten 72 from 46 deliveries - Starc reckoned Australia could "definitely" put more focus into attacking his perceived weakness against fast bowlers' short-pitched deliveries, and replicate that strategy against other England batsmen, too.
"I reckon we can probably bowl a lot more bouncers than we did in that Twenty20 game. Even in that game against Ireland we probably didn't bowl enough either," Starc said. "The boundaries here in Southampton are quite large, so without having that straight hit ... and the square boundaries are back even further, those bouncers for both teams are probably going to come into play."
ENGLAND (from): Eoin Morgan (c), Moeen Ali, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler, Steve Finn, Alex Hales, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, James Taylor, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.
AUSTRALIA (from): Steve Smith (c), Ashton Agar, George Bailey, Joe Burns, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Pat Cummins, Glenn Maxwell, Mitch Marsh, James Pattinson, Mitch Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, Shane Watson, David Warner.
