Clark to return from back injury

Stuart Clark is set to make his comeback after a near three-month lay-off due to a back injury that kept him out of contention for most of Australia's international matches this summer. Clark has been named to captain New South Wales in their second-last Sheffield Shield game of the season, against Tasmania in Hobart starting on Wednesday.

Although Clark has conceded his international career is all but over he is keen to take on more captaincy duties with the Blues and has signed a county deal with Kent. He will take the reins for New South Wales, who have rested their regular leader Simon Katich due to his heavy workload.

The Blues are also without Josh Hazlewood, who has a side strain, and Grant Lambert and Moises Henriques, who have been dropped. But their batting has been given a boost with the return of Usman Khawaja, who has averaged 60.62 this season but hasn't played since early January due to a thumb injury.

Steven Smith has also been named in the 12-man group, having finished his duties with the Australia Twenty20 team in New Zealand, while Tasmania chose an unchanged squad. New South Wales would need to win their remaining two games outright and have a host of other results fall their way to even have a chance of making the Sheffield Shield final, as they sit second-last on the table.

New South Wales squad Phil Jaques, Phillip Hughes, Usman Khawaja, Peter Forrest, Ben Rohrer, Dominic Thornely, Steven Smith, Steve O'Keefe, Peter Nevill (wk), Stuart Clark (capt), Mitchell Starc, Trent Copeland.

Tasmania squad Ed Cowan, Rhett Lockyear, Alex Doolan, George Bailey (capt), Daniel Marsh, Tim Paine (wk), James Faulkner, Xavier Doherty, Brendan Drew, Adam Griffith, Tim Macdonald, Adam Maher.