Australia's George Bailey dismisses reports of T20 retirement

Bailey hopes to feature at the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 to be held in India

Australian middle-order batsman George Bailey has dismissed reports of his retirement from international T20 cricket, Cricket Australia confirmed on their official website. Bailey who has not played for Australia in the format for more than a year insists that he will continue his push for an inclusion in the squad for the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 tournament.

The clarification on Bailey’s future came in the wake of a report by Fox Sports on Monday that Bailey, who stepped down as skipper of Australia’s T20 team last year, was calling time on his career in the format after he was not considered for selection in the one-off T20 against England at Cardiff, which the hosts won by 5 runs.

In fact, Bailey’s last appearance in a T20 international came against Bangladesh at the 2014 World Twenty20 where Australia were knocked out in the group stage. His prolonged absence from the squad had led to the rumours of his retirement but it has now been confirmed that Bailey is staying put and still harbours hopes of a comeback.

“George has spoken to the selectors and team management and stressed his desire to feature in the Twenty20 international squad in the future and to be part of the team that travels to the ICC World Twenty20 in India next year,” the statement released by Cricket Australia said.

“The selectors and team management are fully supportive of that and now it’s up to George to put the performances on the board to give himself the best chance of selection,” it further added.

The 32-year-old has a unique feat of captaining Australia in every match that he has played in the shortest format of the game. Bailey led his country to the 2012 World T20 semi-final and was also skipper of Australia’s limited overs side when Michael Clarke was injured.

Australia are ot scheduled to play any T20 international until January 2016 where they will take on visitors India for a three-match T20 series and will follow it up with a similar face-off against South Africa, again on their home turf.

So Bailey will be hoping to make the most of his opportunities in the ODI format starting with the five-match series against England which starts on Thursday.