Australia coach McDonald indicates very few cricketers will feature in all three formats of the game in future

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Adelaide, Nov 16 (IANS) Australia head coach Andrew McDonald indicated that cricket in the country could start seeing players who would be playing in all three formats of the game. He also praised veteran opener David Warner for having the impressive capacity to play in all formats of the game for Australia.

"As we go across the journey over the next four or five years, I think you'll see more separation from players that potentially play all three formats, they might get shifted aside for the players who play 12 months of the year in the franchise world."

"Therefore, working on that for 12 months of the year versus potentially another player that plays all three formats working on it for three months, clearly, that other player is going to progress at an accelerated rate. But there's always going to be outliers, there's always going to be players that can play all three formats and will go against the trend."

"David Warner, the ability for him to play across all three formats is truly amazing and (he's) one of the all-time great players, not only in Australia, but worldwide in terms of the ability to be able to do that, there's very few that can and sustain it for that period of time," said McDonald on SEN Radio show on Wednesday.

McDonald revealed that Test and ODI skipper Pat Cummins' decision to skip IPL 2023 was due to a hectic cricketing schedule where players would be given break after touring India for four Tests and three ODIs and can participate only in small part of the T20 league.

"I could see players potentially having a break on the back of the Indian ODI series at the end of the Test series and then potentially picking up a little bit of IPL content at the back end. Each case will be individual, and it'll be depending on how much cricket they've played across the summer and that Indian Test series as well."

McDonald reckons that all-rounder Cameron Green will generate huge interest from IPL teams in the mini auction to be held in Kochi on December 2023. Green had caught the eye of many Indian fans when he hit two blistering half-centuries while opening the batting in a three-match T20I bilateral series in September.

"It's a real positive if his (Green) body would be in a place to go there and fulfil that, but also knowing we've got the Ashes on the back of that so there will be some balance given there. We'll have to consider if he does get picked up what that looks like in terms of his training programs, overall load (and) whether it's a full time slot at the IPL."

McDonald signed off by saying Australia will have to get their combinations right ahead of the Men's ODI World Cup to be held in India next year. "We go quickly into the next cycle of ICC events, which is a 50-over World Cup in less than 12 months and we've got 14 opportunities to be able to bring a team together under a new captain."

--IANS

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