Tim David has not played a 50-over game since 2023, and Tasmania are picking him to start his World Cup push
The RCB hitter has been named for Tasmania against Victoria in the One-Day Cup on Saturday, with his coach saying he wants a place at the 2027 ODI World Cup.
Oct 23, 2026
Tim David will play a 50-over game on Saturday for the first time since 2023. Tasmania have named him to face Victoria in the One-Day Cup, and their coach Jeff Vaughan has said what the selection is for: David wants to be in Australia’s squad for the 2027 ODI World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
“He wants to keep playing in this format, learn it, be good at it, and then make it possible for the Australians to select him in that format as well,” Vaughan said on Friday.
That is a change of tune. In July 2025 David said an ODI return was “not the immediate plan”, and as recently as May this year Australia’s head coach Andrew McDonald said he had not made himself available for the format.
Not much 50-over cricket to go on
For a player Indian fans watched hit an unbeaten 70 off 25 balls for Royal Challengers Bengaluru against Chennai Super Kings in April, David’s one-day record is thin. He has played four ODIs, all in South Africa in 2023, when he was called up as cover for an injured Glenn Maxwell. He has not played a List A game since.
Before that there was one game for Tasmania in November 2021, a few months after a One-Day Cup in England for Surrey in which he made two centuries and an unbeaten 52 in eight innings. The rest is five Associate matches for Singapore in 2019.
He has not held a state contract since he was a rookie at Western Australia, before his Singapore years. As a freelance T20 player his franchise schedule has kept him out of Australian domestic cricket, and he has not played at all since the European T20 Premier League in mid-September.
Australia need a finisher
The timing suits Australia. Maxwell has retired from ODIs, and the side has looked short of late-innings hitting since, most recently in the 2-1 series defeat in South Africa that ended on 30 September.
Vaughan plans to use David the way Australia would. “We’ll probably name him around six, and then depending on how the innings goes, we might slide him up,” he said. The ideal, in his words, is for David to walk out around the 30 to 35-over mark and close the innings, which leaves him roughly the length of a T20 innings to bat.
Saturday may not be a one-off either. Tasmania play Queensland in Brisbane on Monday 16 November, and Vaughan said that game is on the table. The catch is that Australia play England in three ODIs on 13, 15 and 18 November. If the selectors like what they see against Victoria, David could be needed somewhere else that week. I suspect he would not mind.