Australia will look to the experience of World Cup winners Mitchell Starc and Glenn Maxwell to help them qualify for the tri-series final in their must-win match against West Indies on Tuesday. Both men were named in the XI for Sunday's match against South Africa in Barbados, which was washed out with only an over bowled; both are expected to retain their places against West Indies.
Maxwell failed to reach double figures in the first two matches of this series and was subsequently dropped, and was not immediately recalled even when David Warner was ruled out of the campaign with a broken finger. Starc's workload has been managed as he plays his first series back following ankle surgery, and Australia have lost only the matches in which he was rested.
"We had Maxi back in, Mitchell Starc coming back in, a bit of World Cup experience," stand-in coach Justin Langer said after the washout against South Africa. "They're all pressure games. Certainly, in this instance, over these last two [matches] there's real pressure. It's game on.
"We haven't done ourselves any favours in the sense of we haven't got ourselves automatically into the final like we would have liked. It's good to see guys under pressure, and this is a little bit more pressure than a normal one-day international on Tuesday."
Stretching back to February's tour of New Zealand, Maxwell has scores of 0, 6, 0, 0 and 3 from his five most recent ODI innings. Debutant Travis Head was initially given the first chance in the middle order after Warner's injury, but Maxwell's experience makes him an appealing option at the business end of the tournament.
"When you lose someone like David Warner you lose a bit of that experience," Langer said. "Maxi has played a bit of cricket now, but also his dynamic fielding. We've talked a bit about our fielding over this tournament. To bring Maxi back into this side, his fielding adds a lot.
"We've talked a bit about not being able to finish off our innings as well as we would have liked to. We thought with the way he goes about his business that would add something to that, and obviously his offspin bowling. It's nice to have that up our sleeve."
Australia also need to decide on the make-up of their attack for Tuesday's game against West Indies after leaving legspinner Adam Zampa out of Sunday's match. Zampa is Australia's leading wicket-taker in the series but struggled to contain the West Indians in his most recent match in St Kitts, where he took 2 for 60 from seven overs.
"We've got to consider a couple of things now," Langer said. "Adam Zampa will definitely come into it. He probably would have played [on Sunday] had it not have rained. That was more strategic with the wet outfield. But then you've also got to consider how we go against West Indies and whether we bring Nathan Coulter-Nile back in, because he's played a couple of games.
"I think he [Zampa] has been pretty good. He probably just got his lines a bit wrong the other night, and some of those big West Indians if you get it in their wheel-arc, as we saw they're going to belt you out of the ground. He's learning, and he was the first to admit after the game that he perhaps just didn't get his strategy right. The reason he didn't play [against South Africa] is purely and simply because of the rain, and we thought with the wet ball he might not be able to hold it as well."