Former Australian captain Michael Clarke has questioned how selectors could pick uncapped wicketkeeper Josh Inglis in the 15-man squad for the T20 World Cup.
The West Australian was the bolter in the squad for the tournament which begins in October, named alongside Matthew Wade as the glovemen in the squad.
Inglis was picked ahead of the likes of Alex Carey and Josh Philippe despite both being included in recent tours to West Indies and Bangladesh.
Neither was able to cement a place in the back-to-back 4-1 series defeats, while Inglis has been playing in the English domestic T20 Blast and The Hundred tournaments.
Speaking on Big Sports Breakfast, Clarke questioned some of the decision making around the squad, which also saw several senior players welcomed back into the fold despite their withdrawals from the recent tours.
"I don't get it. How can you pick an Australia team and then somebody that's not even on the tour gets selected in a World Cup squad over those players?" Clarke said.
"Every player that said, 'I'm not going on the tour', for whatever reason, just comes back into the World Cup squad.
"I spoke to enough people at Cricket Australia that were so peed off that players would not put playing for the country first, yet there's no consequences.
"All you've done is set a precedent to say, 'Go for it, pick and choose whatever tournaments you want to play.'
"All this has come because we've lost those two series to West Indies and Bangladesh, so now everyone feels like they're under the pump.
"You get to a stage as a player or coach or administrator, you say all the right things, you got all these grand plans and when sh*t hits the fan and your job's on the line, you do whatever it takes to get a win, because that's the only thing that's going to save you.
"That's what happened right now."
Clarke also wondered how Inglis, who has performed solidly in domestic cricket in Australia, could seemingly jump the queue without featuring internationally, even with the absences in recent tours.
"How can you pick a player in a World Cup squad... who has never represented Australia before?" Clarke said.
"He couldn't make the second team. We just took our second team to West Indies and to Bangladesh, he couldn't make that, yet he's jumped all those players and got picked in the World Cup squad.
"All it shows is we still have absolutely no idea what our best team is.
"Why'd you take those guys in front of Inglis then?"
New chair of selectors George Bailey responded to some of those queries on Thursday following the squad announcement, explaining the rationale behind the Inglis call.
"His performance, and not just in T20 but across all formats, has been really impressive over the last twelve months," Bailey said.
"So there was a lot of challenges around the decisions around bringing guys back from playing in the UK and we'd spoken to Josh about playing in The Blast and hopefully The Hundred and continuing to push his case that way.
"In terms of our squad, we think he brings some great flexibility. He’s batted at the top but in terms of guys who had been at the top and shifted into the middle, or I think his transformation into a middle order player last year at the Scorchers was seamless.
"He's a really good player of spin, provides a few different finishing abilities in terms of being able to play all around the ground, but also really powerful as well.
"So he's a really great all round player and I fully appreciate the ‘bolter’ look about it but certainly someone we've had our eye on for some time."
The recent poor results have also heaped more pressure on coach Justin Langer.
Several former teammates including Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden have leapt to Langer's defence in recent days.
Clarke said the situation can't keep playing out through leaks to the media.
"I think there's no doubt there's some players that aren't happy with Langer's style. I think that's fine. If that's what Cricket Australia have done, they're handling it the right way," Clarke said.
"Coming out publicly and saying that they're supporting him is the right thing to do if that's the way they're going to go and then trying to fix the issue.
"That's good leadership. It''s the behind your back stuff, you're just creating a war. It never ends well.
"Cricket Australia can say, 'We support JL', but its the same thing, you've got the full support of the board, then a couple weeks down the track the full support of the board just sacked you.
"Yes, he should be (coach through the T20 World Cup and Ashes), otherwise Cricket Australia have made a major, major mistake.
"They can't come out and support and now sack him they'll look like absolute fools."