Australia legspinner Adam Zampa and wicketkeeper Josh Inglis will miss the first ODI against India in Perth with Matthew Kuhnemann and Josh Philippe called in.
Zampa is missing for paternity reasons while Inglis has not recovered from a calf strain with Philippe set to keep in an ODI for the first time while Alex Carey plays a Sheffield Shield match as part of his Ashes preparation. Inglis has also been ruled out of the second ODI in Adelaide next Thursday when Carey returns to the side, but Australia are hopeful Inglis will be fit for the third match in Sydney on October 25.
Zampa's wife Harriet is in the late stages of pregnancy with their second child and with the due date not far away, Zampa has elected to remain at home in northern New South Wales as Perth is quite a difficult place to return from quickly.
He is likely to play the second and third matches in Adelaide and Sydney as traveling home from those two cities is much shorter and easier. He is still due to play in the five-match T20I series that follows with all five of those matches being played on the east coast.
Kuhnemann has been called up for Sunday's Perth fixture and looks set to play his first ODI in three years, his first on Australian soil, after playing four matches in Sri Lanka in 2022.
He has travelled non-stop with the Australia team throughout the winter as part of squads for the World Test Championship final, the three-match Test tour and five-match T20I tour of the Caribbean, the three-match T20I and three-match ODI home series against South Africa, and the three-match T20I tour of New Zealand. But he played just one match across those tours, the second T20I against West Indies in Jamaica back in July.
Kuhnemann has only played three domestic 50-over matches for Tasmania since then, picking up figures of 1 for 34, 1 for 74 and 2 for 51 in three wins, but also made a stunning 56 not out against New South Wales in the first game of the new domestic season.
Meanwhile, Inglis is still recovering from the calf injury that kept him out of the tour of New Zealand. Sunday's opening ODI against India is just over four weeks from when he strained it while doing a running session in Perth and he has not recovered in time. Whether he is fit by the third ODI in Sydney remains to be seen.
Carey is in Australia's first-choice ODI XI as a specialist batter and was named in Australia's squad for the matches against India. But he won't be in Perth as he will remain in Adelaide to play a Sheffield Shield match for South Australia against Queensland that starts on Wednesday.
Australia's selectors face a delicate balancing act of managing their three-format players ahead of the Ashes. Allrounder Cameron Green is set to play the first two ODIs in Perth and Adelaide but could miss the third in Sydney in order to play a Shield game in Perth that starts on October 28.
Green is also unlikely to bowl against India but is instead set to ramp his loads up in the Shield game against South Australia after only bowling four overs in the first Shield match of the summer against NSW last week.
Carey missed South Australia's opening Shield match because he was called into the New Zealand tour at late notice due to Inglis' injury. Philippe will now miss two consecutive Shield matches for NSW after he was also a late call-up to New Zealand as wicketkeeping cover for Carey when Glenn Maxwell was ruled out with a fractured wrist.
Philippe has not played an ODI since the 2021 three-match tour of the Caribbean when he played as a specialist opening batter under Carey's captaincy, a year before Inglis made his international debut. Philippe has not played in any format for Australia since 2023 but has been in impressive form for Australia A in red-ball cricket and has an excellent domestic one-day record for NSW and Western Australia
Australia ODI squad vs India
Mitchell Marsh (capt), Xavier Bartlett, Alex Carey (wk), Cooper Connolly, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wk), Matthew Kuhnemann, Mitchell Owen, Josh Philippe (wk), Matt Renshaw, Matthew Short, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa