Australian Test opener Usman Khawaja has backed fellow teammate Glenn Maxwell to come good in the upcoming T20 World Cup 2024. Khawaja’s backing comes at a time with Maxwell having a horrible Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 season scoring only 52 runs across 10 games for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).

“The IPL form is absolutely irrelevant. Maxy’s proven himself time and time again. Any player who’s performed over a long period of time understands that you can’t perform well every time you go out there,” Khawaja told news outlet the West Australian.

“You take a few risks, particularly if you bat in the middle order, and T20 cricket’s not easy. But (for this tournament) if he gets one good innings, he’s away. It doesn’t matter what’s happened in the past. He’s not going to change his game and nor should he. Just keep going. He’ll find it,” Khawaja added.

Australia are placed in Group B along with England, Namibia, Oman and Scotland. They start their campaign on June 5 against Oman before taking on arch-rivals England on June 8. Their next match comes against Namibia on June 11 before playing against Scotland on June 15 in their last group stage match.

The Australia squad is being led by Mitchell Marsh with Cam Green and Marcus Stoinis being other all-rounders apart from Maxwell. The big-hitting batter, however, is the only spinning all-rounder in the side with Ashton Agar and Adam Zampa being the specialist spinners.

Among the pacers, the Australians have selected ODI and Test skipper Pat Cummins, IPL 2024 winner Mitchell Marsh, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Ellis.

Among the batters, David Warner and Travis Head have been selected as openers with this being Warner’s last T20 World Cup.

Tim David is kept in the middle order while josh Inglis and Matthew Wade have been selected as wicketkeeper-batters.