Australian allrounder Glenn Maxwell will miss the Twenty20 series opener against India because of a lingering hamstring injury.
Maxwell flew home to Melbourne on Sunday as the rest of the T20 squad arrived in Adelaide for Tuesday's opening game of the three-match series.
"He has still got a little slight hamstring niggle so ... he will spend a few days in Melbourne at home and join the squad when we get there in a couple of days," acting coach Michael Di Venuto told reporters at Adelaide Airport.
Di Venuto will take over as head coach for the T20 series from Darren Lehmann, who is in a Sydney hospital suffering deep vein thrombosis.
Di Venuto said it remained unknown if Lehmann would be cleared to coach Australia on next month's tour of New Zealand.
"It was a bit of a scare yesterday with Boof (Lehmann) going for a scan and then straight into hospital with DVT," Di Venuto said.
"The good news is he's on the road to recovery. I spoke to him this morning, he's in good spirits and his health is improving ... hopefully Boof will be right in a week or so."
Maxwell's absence opens a gap in the Australian batting order, with emerging South Australian Travis Head favoured to make his international debut on Tuesday before his home crowd.
Di Venuto said the entire 17-man roster would feature in the Indian series as selectors mull over their squad for the T20 World Cup starting in March.
"Obviously there is a big carrot at the end of this with the World Cup team being picked, and you can only pick 15 people so we want to give people opportunities to see what they can do," he said.
But Di Venuto urged players not to dwell on the series as a World Cup audition.
"It's also important that they don't treat it as that," he said.
"They have also just got to go out and play.
"If they're thinking about the World Cup they are likely to go out there and get a bit of stage fright so they have just got to play the game the way they have been playing."
