![\"Nicola](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/738df4fff257992f6e4e9e44fb4d767e.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nAustralia have dropped vice-captain Tahlia McGrath for their opening T20 against India, with the hosts sent in to bat at the SCG.<\/p>\n
With McGrath down on form for the past year, Australia pulled the trigger on the allrounder on Sunday with Nicola Carey recalled in her spot.<\/p>\n
Veteran seamer Megan Schutt and the hard-hitting Grace Harris have also been dropped for the match which begins Australia’s run into June’s T20 World Cup.<\/p>\n
But it is McGrath’s omission at a wet SCG that is the most notable.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Hurricanes’ Nicola Carey returns to the national side for the first time since 2023. (Darren England\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old had appeared poised to eventually take over from Alyssa Healy as captain until recently, before a difficult 2025.<\/p>\n
That led to Sophie Molineux being named as the retiring Healy’s successor as captain, with Ashleigh Gardner also made vice-captain alongside McGrath.<\/p>\n
Carey, meanwhile, has not played for Australia since knocking back a national contract in 2023 to prioritise pre-seasons at home over life on the road as a fringe player.<\/p>\n
Australia enter the match without a World Cup trophy in their cabinet for the first time in almost a decade, after losing semi-finals in the most recent T20 and ODI events.<\/p>\n
The first opportunity to win back a trophy will be in June’s T20 World Cup, with six matches scheduled in the format between now and then.<\/p>\n
Australia: Beth Mooney (wk), Georgia Voll, Phoebe Litchfield, Ellyse Perry, Ashleigh Gardner, Georgia Wareham, Annabel Sutherland, Nicola Carey, Sophie Molineux (capt), Kim Garth, Darcie Brown.<\/p>\n
India: Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), Richa Ghosh (wk), Deepti Sharma, Arundhati Reddy, Shreyanka Patil, Kranti Gaud, N Shree Charani, Renuka Singh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia have dropped vice-captain Tahlia McGrath for their opening T20 against India, with the hosts sent in to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[31021,31023,64,63,25997,244268,44,78308,128346,48682,46745,244269],"class_list":["post-481326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-alyssa-healy","tag-ashleigh-gardner","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-grace-harris","tag-megan-schutt","tag-news","tag-nicola-carey","tag-sophie-molineux","tag-t20-world-cup","tag-tahlia-mcgrath","tag-vice-captain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}