Spinner Hauritz to be part of Oz squad against Windies

Brisbane, Nov. 25 (ANI): Australian captain Ricky Ponting has confirmed that off-spinner Nathan Hauritz will be a part of the first Test squad taking on the West Indies at the Gabba in Brisbane on Thursday.

Pacer Doug Bollinger will be the 12th man, while the other quicks featuring in the team would be Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

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Australian team: Ricky Ponting (c), Shane Watson, Simon Katich, Michael Hussey, Michael Clarke, Marcus North, Brad Haddin, Michael Johnson, Nathan Hauritz, Peter Siddle, Ben Hilfenhaus. 12th man: Doug Bollinger.

In his pre-match press conference, Ponting also expressed sympathy for the Windies, who may have lost key batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan due to a training mishap on Wednesday morning.

The injury occurred just hours after Windies skipper Chris Gayle arrived back in Brisbane from Jamaica. A jet-lagged Gayle is expected to play despite his whirlwind trip home to visit his sick mum.

"To have their captain going halfway round the world in the past couple of days and one of their better batsmen going down, it's obviously not a great start for them," Ponting said.

"But all we can do is prepare for both those guys to play.We've talked about those guys' importance to their team, so we'll just wait and see what they come out with."

Ponting did not know what to expect from a fatigued Gayle at the Gabba.

"It can be hard, ideally you don't want to do it (travel before a game. But we've all done it in the past when we've travelled a lot and go into games pretty soon after," he said.

"We'll wait and see, hopefully he doesn't perform that well," he added. (ANI)