AUS W vs IND W 2026: Australia all-rounder Sophie Molineux ruled out of series with sore back

Ahead of the all-important second One-Day International against India Women at the Bellerive Oval, Hobart, Australian all-rounder Sophie Molineux has been ruled out for the rest of the multi-format series. Molineux is also likely to be unavailable for the upcoming series against the West Indian side, where she was also supposed to lead the side across formats.

National selector Shawn Legler is keeping himself positive and is more than hopeful of Molineux's return to the Australian set-up before the upcoming Women's T20 World Cup, which will be played in Europe.

"Sophie's developed a bit of lower back pain over the last few days. So unfortunately that means she's going to miss the rest of the series and we'll look towards her being available for the West Indies series coming up. So we don't want to take any risks with the T20 World Cup coming up," Flegler told via Channel 7.

"She's still right to bat, still right to run, but it's just the bowling that she's got a little bit of pain at the moment … we'll get her scanned and then we'll have to offload her for a little while and that's why we don't want to take any chances with the next few matches coming up," Legler added on Molineux's condition.

The selector also stressed on the fact that the Aussies will continue to be led by Alyssa Healy for the next few games and that Molineux will be travelling to the Caribbean land for the upcoming series, if she is declared fully fit. Her captaincy stint with the Australian side began during the T20Is against India, and she would want to have more of the experience, keeping in mind the upcoming global event.

"We don't think she's going to miss too much more [cricket]. We've got Alyssa captaining for the next few games, and then the plan is to take Soph to the West Indies and continue her captaincy over there. We think it's good opportunity for her to continue that leading into the World Cup - that was always the plan, the T20 World Cup, and we'll keep making decisions based around that," Flegler added.

It is worth mentioning that the Australians haven't named a replacement for Molineux in the ongoing series against the Harmanpreet Kaur-led side.