Nicola Carey Eyes T20 World Cup Spot as Australia Tests Depth in Windies

A key contributor to Australia's triumphant campaigns at the 2020 T20 World Cup and the 2022 ODI World Cup, Carey recently earned a recall during the home season and has since embraced her reintegration into the squad during the ongoing tour of the West Indies.

"I obviously haven't been here for a while, but coming back in, there's a lot of familiar faces, which is always nice," the 32-year-old Carey told ICC ahead of the ODI series.

"When you're out of it, you sit back and think, I don't know how they do it, not being at home that often. But when you're in it, you just do it. It's quite fun being around the group."

She has played 25 ODIs and 31 T20Is for Australia women and has taken 19 wickets in each format.

With the marquee tournament fast approaching, the all-rounder admitted that competition for places remains intense within the Australian camp.

"It's a massive tournament. Everyone here would want to be a part of that. That's the carrot dangling at the end of this. Everyone's trying to put their best foot forward. I'm sure we'll find out soon," she said.

Australia head into the ODI leg of the tour after a dominant 3-0 sweep in the T20I series, underlining their strong form ahead of the global event.

The ODI series, however, will see the visitors without star all-rounder Annabel Sutherland, who has been rested to manage workload concerns. Carey acknowledged the significance of Sutherland's absence but viewed it as an opportunity for others to step up.

"Belsy (Sutherland) is massive for this team, and when you take her out, that sort of leaves a couple of gaps, both batting and bowling," she explained.

"There's that many all-rounders floating around, so I guess that's opportunities for different people to step up. It's been nice to sort of try different things and open the bowling. You haven't done a lot of that even back home, so it's been cool to experience different things within this team," she added.

As Australia shift base to St Kitts for the 50-over series, Carey believes the team's plans are falling into place at the right time.

"It's nice to change up the location here in St Kitts, obviously coming off the back of those three T20Is," she said.

"There's a fair bit we can take out of that. We had a lot of discussion around how we wanted to go about it. I think we saw that come to fruition, which was really pleasing to see," she added.

Australia women will take on West Indies in the opening ODI on Friday, looking to carry forward their recent momentum as they fine-tune preparations for the T20 World Cup.

- ANI