Six Aussies to return home after Third Test (16 October 1998)

16 October 1998

Six Aussies to return home after Third Test

By Our Special Representative

PESHAWAR, Oct 15: Six touring Australian cricketers, including skipper Mark Taylor, will return home after the third and final Test against Pakistan on Oct 28.

The six players will miss the International Trophy at Dhaka starting there from Oct 26. They will be replaced by another set of half-a-dozen players on Oct 27 who will land directly in the Bangladesh capital.

After the Dhaka competition, the Australian team returns to Pakistan for the final leg of the tour during which they play one-day internationals on Nov 6, 8 and 10 at Karachi, Peshawar and Lahore respectively.

Although the Australian selectors are unlikely to announce the squad during the second Test in progress here, skipper Mark Taylor, Ian Healy, Michael Slater and Justin Langer are said to board the Oct 28 plane.

"One of the seamers and Colin Miller might complete the tally of six players," a sources confided here.

Sources said Adam Gilchrist, Damien Martyn, Michael Bevan, Tom Moody and Brad Young were amongst the players confirmed to join the team.

Informed sources said the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) were delaying the announcement of the team to avoid any undue controversy by naming the team now.

"Naturally, the players will get upset and demoralized when they will be told that they are not going to Dhaka.

However, they admitted that the start of the controversy looked inevitable "as if the team is not announced now, it surely would be released during the final Test at Karachi (between Oct 22 and 26)," they added.

The ACB is already tangled in a controversy with the players regarding the players fee. Just recently, the ACB reduced the contractual fee of six frontline players from A$200,000 to A$190,000.

Source :: Dawn (https://dawn.com/)