The name of the released player from the Australian World Cup squad was revealed today and it is the lady who was earmarked to be their World Cup captain, Suzette Thomas. There were rumours that two other players faced expulsion from the team but now it seems no further action has been taken against them at this stage, their names are not known yet.

Suzette Thomas, formerly Suzette Lyster, has represented Australia in the previous World Cup in 2007, in the test match series versus the UK in 2008 and the Quadrangular tournament in 2009.She represented her state side, Western Australia, at the Australian Nationals in Ballarat in 2010 and was part of the winning Ladies team. She then was selected for the 16 person World Cup squad and finally the team in September 2010.There has been no official statement regarding her departure issued yet and no reasons are known.

It is not known who will replace her in the team but the other four ladies who were in the initial squad but failed to make the final team were Liz Lyster (Suzette’s sister), Tanya Hollow (Australia’s last World Cup Captain), Jess Jolly and Leanne Polglasse and it would be logical to assume that one of them would be called up to replace her.

Australia do have a history of releasing players from their squads, they dropped Robert Sibley from the 2008 Quadrangular squad after his two best horses tragically died and the selectors decided that he was not good enough on his reserve horses to make the squad. However, as next year’s World Cup will be played overseas in the UK and so none of the players will be playing their own horses it would seem very unlikely this is a horse related issue.