MUMBAI, (Reuters) – All-rounder Shane Watson and fast bowler Mitchell Johnson will skip Australia’s final one-day international against India today and head home instead.
World champions Australia clinched the seven-match series on Sunday by taking a 4-2 lead with a six-wicket win.
Cricket Australia said in a statement yesterday that Johnson and Watson were leaving India as they “continue to have their workload managed ahead of the upcoming Australian summer and the tour of New Zealand in March”.
Watson was Australia’s third highest scorer with 256 runs and also claimed 10 wickets in six games, while Johnson took nine wickets from five games to help propel the tourists to victory after five players returned home with injuries.
Chief selector Andrew Hilditch said the pair had shouldered a heavy workload since the ICC World Twenty20 in May 2009 and would return home to prepare for the test series with West Indies starting on Nov. 26 and the programme that follows.
Australia will play six tests in eight weeks plus one-day international and Twenty20 series against West Indies and Pakistan before touring New Zealand next year.
