Medium-pacer Clint McKay is expected to win a recall following a hamstring injury for Australia’s opening World Twenty20 warm-up game against New Zealand on Saturday (starting 1400 AEST).

Senior batsman Mike Hussey says while Australia need to quickly settle on their best 11, they also need to give McKay a chance to push his selection claims ahead of their first game in the tournament on Wednesday against Ireland in Colombo.

Australia also have a warm-up fixture against England on Monday.

McKay missed Australia’s one-day international and T20 series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month.

By game three of the Pakistan series earlier this week, Australia’s frontline bowling attack consisted of pacemen Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Shane Watson plus spinner Brad Hogg.

Watson is Australia’s highest-ranked T20 bowler and opens the batting while Cummins and Starc took three wickets each in game three to prove their worth which could make things tough for the unlucky McKay.

“He (McKay) has proven he’s done very well in one-day cricket and T20 over a period of time. He’ll definitely get a chance in a couple of warm-up games to show his worth,” Australia’s No.3 batsman Hussey said on Friday.

However Hussey stressed the importance of a settled lineup.

“Twenty20 is such and up-and-down game really that it’s nice if you can find your balanced team and then you stick with it for as long as possible,” he said.

“Give the players the confidence to be able to go out there and know that this one innings or this one bowling performance isn’t the be-all-and-end-all.”

Hussey says both the Australian and New Zealand camps are interested in possibly playing a one-over eliminator after Saturday’s game to gain more experience in the tie-break format.

Australia tied game two of their series against Pakistan and lost by one run in the extra over.