Western Australia have suffered a blow to their hopes of a hat-trick of 50-over domestic titles with Australia allrounder Aaron Hardie has been ruled out of the Marsh Cup final against New South Wales due to his calf injury.
Hardie suffered calf tightness during WA's last Sheffield Shield match against Tasmania. He only bowled four overs in the second innings of the game and did not field for the entirety of day three. Scans did clear him of any major damage but he was withdrawn from Australia's T20I tour of New Zealand as he was set to fly in on Monday to replace the injured Marcus Stoinis.
WA were hopeful Hardie might be fit to play in Sunday's final at Cricket Central in Sydney but he has not been passed fit to travel.
WA do welcome back four players into their 13-man squad with Jason Behrendorff returning from Australia duty after missing their Marsh Cup win over Tasmania. Joel Paris has been included having not played a single Marsh Cup game all season and could play alongside Behrendorff as a dual left-arm new ball pairing. Paris has played just six Marsh Cup games in the last five seasons with WA preferring to rest him for Sheffield Shield games given they have Behrendorff and Andrew Tye contracted as white-ball specialists.
WA have also named Australia Under-19 World Cup final player of the match Mahli Beardman in the squad for the final. Beardman made his Marsh Cup debut against New South Wales back in November but has not played since. Spin bowling allrounder Cooper Connolly also returns to the squad having not played since the BBL due to a quad strain.
WA is playing in their fifth consecutive Marsh Cup final and is aiming to become the first side to win a hat-trick of titles since NSW did it between 2001-2003. WA are also gunning for their fifth title in seven years.
NSW have picked a settled squad having won their last four matches in a row including beating WA twice.
New South Wales squad: Jackson Bird, Joel Davies, Ollie Davies, Ben Dwarshuis, Jack Edwards, Matthew Gilkes, Chris Green, Liam Hatcher, Moises Henriques (capt), Daniel Hughes, Blake Macdonald, Jack Nisbet, William Salzmann, Tanveer Sangha
Western Australia squad: Sam Whiteman (capt), Ashton Agar, Cameron Bancroft, Mahli Beardman, Jason Behrendorff, Hilton Cartwright, Cooper Connolly, Cameron Gannon, Nick Hobson, Joel Paris, Josh Philippe, D'Arcy Short, Andrew Tye