Cricket Australia (CA) central contract players list announced; Tim Paine, Matthew Wade dropped

Josh Inglis was the new addition to the Australian central contracts list.

Cricket Australia (CA) unveiled its list of centrally contracted players for the national team on Thursday and in development, it was revealed that former Test captain Tim Paine was dropped from the list.

Along with Paine, who stepped down as Australia Test captain weeks before the Ashes 2021-22 tour after his old explicit texts to a female colleague at Tasmania cricket became public, Matthew Wade and Marcus Harris were also dropped from the list. He remains on an indefinite break from the game.

Others omitted include all-rounder Moises Henriques, batsman Ben McDermott and bowlers Jhye Richardson and Kane Richardson. Also missing from the list was pacer James Pattinson who retired from international cricket.

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The number of players in the group, which forms the core of Australia's international squads, was the maximum 20 allowed. Those who missed out can still though represent Australia.

Wicketkeeper-batsman Inglis was a key addition for 2022-23 while Mitch Marsh, Scott Boland, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marcus Stoinis, and Mitchell Swepson all retained their places having earned contract upgrades last season.

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"We believe this group provides us great coverage and versatility across all formats while others, as we saw in the past year, will continue to get opportunities to play a big part. To contract just 20 players was challenging given the number of key series and the cycle of upcoming T20 and one-day World Cups, all of which will require varying skill sets and combinations,” said selector George Bailey.

Players not picked on Thursday can still win a full contract by earning 12 'upgrade points' during the year, with a Test match worth five points, an ODI two points, and a T20 one point.

List of Australia contracted players:

Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner, Adam Zampa.

(AFP inputs)