Watch: Andrew Symonds' Children Will And Chloe Team up With Class of 2007 to Reveal Australia's T20 World Cup Squad

In a heartwarming gesture, Will and Chloe, children of late cricketer Andrew Symonds, featured in a video shared by Cricket Australia to announce the their men’s team squad for the ICC T20 World Cup.

Former Australia allrounder Symonds had died at the age of 46 in a single-car crash in May 2022.

The clip also features legendary Australian players like two-time World Cup-winning skipper Ricky Ponting alongside Adam Gilchrist, Michael Hussey, Michael Clarke, Glenn McGrath, Stuart Clark and Matthew Hayden.

“We weren’t sure how to announce this year’s T20 World Cup squad, so we asked a few of our friends to do it for us,” read the caption of the post shared by Cricket Australia on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

Earlier, New Zealand Cricket had decided to send a girl named Matilda and a boy named Angus to announce the country’s squad for the T20 World Cup. “Join special guests Matilda and Angus at the squad announcement for the upcoming T20 World Cup in the West Indies and USA,” the Black Caps had posted while announcing New Zealand’s T20 World Cup squad.

Coming back to Australia’s T20 World Cup side, the squad will be led by Mitchell Marsh. Steve Smith has been dropped while Jake Fraser-McGurk has been snubbed despite his recent exploits in the IPL 2024. Jason Behrendorff and Matt Short are also not part of the Aussie squad which will take part in the four-week competition scheduled to be played in the West Indies and the USA.

Selection chair George Bailey talked about the big omissions and pointed out that the squad size of 15 left several in-form cricketers unlucky to miss the inclusion.

Also Read: Complete List of T20 World Cup 2024 Squads

“Steve Smith, Matt Short, Jason Behrendorff, Aaron Hardie, Spencer Johnson and Xavier Bartlett were all part of long conversations, along with several others, including Jake Fraser-McGurk who is yet to play T20 International cricket but continues to impress and is developing rapidly,” Bailey said.

“Being constrained to a squad of 15 for World Cups is always a challenge given the different scenarios and options we’d like to cover. We will continue monitoring several players who have missed out on this preliminary squad and note that if we need to change this squad, we have the option to do so over the coming month in accordance with ICC regulations. Ultimately the balance of the final 15 needs to provide the best chance of being successful in this campaign,” he added.

Australia T20 World Cup squad: Mitchell Marsh (c), Ashton Agar, Pat Cummins, Tim David, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, David Warner, Adam Zampa