Pat Cummins has backed an increase in the 15-man limit on squad sizes at the World Cup, as his Australia side face the prospect of picking a team from just 13 available players against England in Ahmedabad on Saturday.
Mitchell Marsh has flown home for family reasons while Glenn Maxwell has been ruled out under concussion protocols, after falling off the back of a golf buggy on Monday. With both men due to return later in the tournament, Australia have opted against naming replacement players since doing so would render Marsh and Maxwell ineligible.
New Zealand are also down to bare bones ahead of their fixture against Pakistan in Bengaluru on Saturday morning. Several players are nursing injuries or niggles following their defeat to South Africa, and they will consider selecting Kyle Jamieson less than 48 hours after he arrived in the country as injury cover for Matt Henry.
"Yeah, to be honest," Cummins said on Friday, when asked if he would support a change to the regulations allowing teams to pick bigger squads. "It's a two-month tournament. You wouldn't want to be in a position where, say, a team like New Zealand have had some injuries.
"Luckily, they've been able to hold someone like Kane [Williamson] in the squad but if they suddenly had to rule him out, I think that wouldn't be good for cricket or the World Cup. It's not like you can poach players from other countries, so I always think as many players as you need, you should be able to pick from."
Sean Abbott is the only member of Australia's 15-man squad yet to feature in the World Cup and they are yet to have a full complement of players to pick from, with Travis Head only returning to fitness for Saturday's win against New Zealand in Dharamsala. "We knew at the start of the tournament we were going to need a full squad of 15," Cummins said.
"It's unfortunate, but we knew over a two-month tournament, you're going to have to chop and change a bit," he added. "To be honest, once the tournament started, we thought we'd have 15 available. But one-day cricket more than any other format, you have injuries, it's high intensity, games are close together."
Cummins said that he has a clear idea of what Australia's best XI looks like, but that he has been "really happy" with performances throughout the squad. "We need to obviously make the semi-finals, but hopefully this is the last hiccup where we've got a smaller squad to pick from and then once we get closer, we've got a full squad.
"I've got in my mind the main XI - the way that we want to play - but I'm really happy with our squad. I think we've shown throughout this tournament, we've been able to mix up the batting order and anyone that's come in has stepped up and done really well."
Australia will make at least two changes on Saturday, with Maxwell and Marsh sitting out, and are likely to bring Cameron Green and Marcus Stoinis into the side. That will mean Steven Smith and Marnus Labuschagne returning to Nos. 3 and 4 respectively. "It's 11 of the 13," Cummins said. "But I don't think there'll be too many surprises."
Maxwell was involved in light training on Thursday afternoon but will not be considered for selection until Australia's fixture against Afghanistan in Mumbai on Tuesday. "He'll just miss this one," Cummins said. "He trained well yesterday and we're still taking it day by day."
Stoinis said on Thursday that Maxwell's injury was the result of "boys being boys" but Cummins played the incident down: "I played golf with him in the arvo [afternoon]. He played quite nicely… it was unfortunate, one of those things, a freak accident. It's good to know it's not something serious."
Marsh texted Stoinis to say that he would be coming back to India "to win this World Cup" and Cummins confirmed that Australia are expecting him to return: "He'll definitely come back - I don't think it'll be a super long trip back home to Perth - but the main thing is he's back home and we'll give him as much time and space as he needs."