Cricket Australia (CA) adds four new faces to central contracts for 2024-25; no place for Warner & Stoinis

A total of 23 Australian players earned central contracts for 2024-25 .

A few days ago, Cricket Australia (CA) announced the complete schedule for Australia’s men’s team in the coming summer, which saw some high-profile series, including a five-match test series against India. On Thursday, they announced the central contracts for the 2024–25 season, which see a total of 23 players get lucrative deals.

The newly-announced central contracts see four new faces earn their maiden deals for Australia. Meanwhile, there are some notable omissions as well, which have surprised many fans. Veteran Australian opener David Warner, who has retired from Tests and ODIs, has been dropped. He, along with all-rounders Marcus Stoinis and Ashton Agar, are not part of the list.

Matt Short, Aaron Hardie and two others get maiden central contracts from Cricket Australia (CA)

The pace duo of Xavier Bartlett and Nathan Ellis are the two exciting names to be included in the central contracts list. Notably, Bartlett played only three matches for Australia overall in 2024, but had a brilliant season in the Big Bash League. He took 20 wickets in BBL 2023-24 for the Brisbane Heat and was one of the reasons for their title win.

Bartlett made his international debut against West Indies and played two ODIs and one T20I, taking 10 wickets. Ellis also had a brilliant domestic and BBL season, which earned him a deal. The 29-year-old pacer made his debut for Australia in 2021 and has been part of the ODIs and T20Is. Apart from them, two all-rounders, Aaron Hardie and Matt Short, are also part of the contracts.

All four of these players are capped Australian cricketers. Hardie and Short are regular faces in the shortest format. Hardie, Short and Ellis didn’t earn contracts for 2023–24, but their notable performances forced CA to include them. The new contracts will be effective after the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2024 in June and Stoinis is still in the race for a place in the squad for the tournament.

CA contracted Men’s Cricketers 2024-25: Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Marnus Labuschagne, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc, Cameron Green, Aaron Hardie, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Sean Abbott, Xavier Bartlett, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Matt Short, Steve Smith, Mitchell Marsh, Nathan Ellis, Lance Morris, Todd Murphy, Jhye Richardson, Adam Zampa, Scott Boland,

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