DUBAI: Australia seamer Kane Richardson, who had pulled out of the limited-overs series against India last month due to a side injury, re-joined the squad in Dubai ahead of the five-match ODI series against Pakistan.

The right-armer was sent home early after he sustained an injury during a nets session before the start of opening T20I clash against India in Vizag. Speaking on his return to the team, the bowler said that he believed his season was over.

“I thought I was done for the season. So it’s always nice to get a positive and be able to come back and play some sort of cricket,” Richardson was quoted as saying by Cricket Australia.

The 28-year-old added that he regretted missing the India tour but was happy to see the team pull off a comeback in the ODI series after going 2-0 down in the first two games. “It could have been a lot worse but also disappointing to miss the last tour. It was amazing waking up every morning to check the scores and see they did it again,” he said.

Australia will play the ODI series against a Pakistan side that will not be including five regular members of the team.

But Richardson insisted that the visitors will not take Pakistan lightly.

“[We bring] massive momentum into this series, but you want to back it up. It’s a professional sport, you want to win every game and this is a huge series going into the World Cup,” he said. “We climbed the mountain of [beating] India now it’s about backing it up against Pakistan who is another quality side,” he added.

Speaking on Steve Smith and David Warner’s reintegration process with the team, Richardson said: “Everyone, in the end, was just really glad to see them. They’ve had a really tough 12 months. They’ve done their time. In 10 days they’re back available so it will be nice to see them back playing cricket in the IPL as well.”

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2019