Enter Clarke, exit Bailey

The baseball glove said it all. If it was not already resolved who would make way for the return of Michael Clarke in this World Cup, then there were more revealing clues on Thursday.

George Bailey is strongly tipped to be omitted on Saturday against Bangladesh, as he himself has acknowledged, and if his role at Australian training was any indication, he has already been told.

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He spent the session catching throws from Australia's fast bowlers as assistant coach Craig McDermott, with bat in hand, gave them practice under the high ball on the boundary.

On the other side of the field Australia's other batsmen, Clarke included, were being taken through drills more appropriate to the positions they occupy in the field, picking up and firing at a plastic stump.

Bailey was a notable absentee but, true team man that he is, there was no dragging of the heels on a moist Gabba, which spent the day with the covers on its wicket square as Brisbane braced for an onslaught of wild weather called Tropical Cyclone Marcia.

When he was not passing gloved balls onto McDermott, he was enthusiastically chasing after errant ones.

Bailey had been short of runs before the handy 55 he made in Australia's opening game against England, and Clarke's place in the team can hardly be questioned. But given the two years he enjoyed before this summer, and how regularly he has led the one-day team in Clarke's absence, it is difficult not to feel sorry for Bailey, despite the sound logic behind his pending omission.

"It's a unique set of circumstances. Michael, had he been fit, would have been a walk-up start [against England], so obviously now that he is fit someone has got to make way for him, and sadly it could be [Bailey]," former Australian captain and selector Greg Chappell said on Thursday.

Of course, Bailey may not be the only Australian who misses out on Saturday. If the meteorologists have not just been tossing a coin, and the deluge of rain forecast to arrive in Brisbane on Friday comes to fruition, there may be no game at all.

In that case, Australia will be left without having played in two weeks -- and with what could effectively amount to a play-off for top spot in Pool A ahead of them against New Zealand in Auckland on Saturday week.