WI vs AUS: How did Wes Agar play the second ODI despite not being in the XI submitted at the toss?

Western Australia cricketer Wes Agar was one of the shining lights of an otherwise disappointing Australian performance in the rescheduled second ODI against the West Indies in Barbados on Saturday (July 22). Agar played a fighting knock of 41 batting at No.10 and produced an economical five-over spell of 0/24 even as the rest of […]
 
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WI vs AUS: How did Wes Agar play the second ODI despite not being in the XI submitted at the toss?

Western Australia cricketer Wes Agar was one of the shining lights of an otherwise disappointing Australian performance in the rescheduled second ODI against the West Indies in Barbados on Saturday (July 22).

Agar played a fighting knock of 41 batting at No.10 and produced an economical five-over spell of 0/24 even as the rest of the Aussie unit left a lot to be desired and the tourists suffered a bitter four-wicket loss to the Calypso Kings in the ICC Super League.

There was a chance, however, that Wes Agar wouldn’t have even made the Australian playing XI at the Kensington Oval. Agar, who proved to be one of Australia’s few positives out of their defeat, wasn’t originally part of their team when the penultimate one-dayer of the series was originally meant to be played on Thursday (July 22).

WI vs AUS: How did Wes Agar play the second ODI despite not being in the XI submitted at the toss?

Wes Agar got the chance to play the second ODI despite not being initially part of the Australian XI.

How Wes Agar played Australia’s second ODI against the West Indies?

The cricketer got the chance to add to his tally of Australian caps only after the visitors received a special permission from the officials to make a last-minute change to their playing unit. Wes Agar came in place of injured paceman Josh Hazlewood, who, as per an update from ESPNcricinfo, “is managing a calf niggle which has been impacted by spending time stuck in a hotel room.”

Usually, once the toss has happened, teams aren’t allowed to make any changes to their playing XI unless a solid enough reason is put forward to the officials. But Agar could walk into the side as a replacement once the umpires nodded to the Australians’ request following Hazlewood’s injury.

WI vs AUS: How did Wes Agar play the second ODI despite not being in the XI submitted at the toss?

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The outcome of the toss that had taken place on Thursday was applied to the rescheduled fixture on Saturday as well, since the match was only suspended at the time and not abandoned. The Australians had opted to bat first at the time and could make no changes to their side unless permitted.

The second ODI got suspended on its original date due to the COVID-19 scare, with one of the non-playing members from the West Indies camp testing positive for the contagious virus. That forced Cricket West Indies (CWI) and Cricket Australia (CA) to ask both the teams to isolate and take another round of tests on everyone involved.

The development had put the remaining two ODIs under the threat of cancellation, before they were thankfully rescheduled following negative COVID-19 tests result of each of the 152 members part of the bio-secure bubble for the series.

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