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Jake Fraser-McGurk, an emerging talent, says he doesn’t feel bad about not making Australia’s T20 World Cup team and feels that he wasn’t good enough to be included in the final 15 players.
Along with Steven Smith, Fraser-McGurk was notably left out of Australia’s squad last week as the selectors went with a tried-and-true group that allowed them flexibility in terms of lineup options.
Fraser-McGurk hasn’t played a Twenty20 international for Australia; he’s only played two One-Day Internationals towards the end of the Australian summer. However, he’s been killing it in the Twenty24 Indian Premier League, smashing two 15-ball half-centuries, including 84 off 27 balls against the Mumbai Indians, where he took IPL leader Jasprit Bumrah for a six and two fours, and India’s all-rounder Hardik Pandya for 22 off an over.
However, Fraser-McGurk stated in an interview with the Willow Talk podcast that he had had clear conversations with the selectors and that he was not concerned about not being picked for the World Cup squad.
“The communication was really good,” Fraser-McGurk said. “There’s two ways you can look at it. You can look at it through, ‘this is what I’ve done to prove my case,’ and then there’s also, ‘look, a month and a half ago I wasn’t even in the picture.’
“They probably had a good idea of what [the squad] was a month and a half ago, trying to build that and get the connection in the team. And it’s also hard to fit in. You’ve got David Warner, our best opener ever in three formats. You’ve got Travis Head, who is lighting it up over here and has lit it up over the past 18 months.
“And then Mitch Marsh is the same and he’s also the captain.
“I can’t really see myself batting five or six because we’re pretty set there with Tim David, Cam Green and those sort of blokes. That’s the way I think about it. That’s fine. There’s hopefully going to be more time for that.