Maxwell's injury has been termed "a minor aggravation to his left ankle", and a conservative route has been taken with an eye on the ODI World Cup in India in October-November. He was already due to leave the tour after the T20I series for the birth of his first child before rejoining the squad in India.

"We are taking a precautionary approach, given Glenn was heading home next week in any case," Australia selector Tony Dodemaide said. "We will monitor Glenn's recovery with a view to him being available for the three-match ODI series in India in advance of the World Cup."

He had flagged a potential international retirement last year after the T20 World Cup in Australia, but stepped back from that in subsequent months and chair of selectors George Bailey indicated he remained firmly in their thoughts for next year's tournament in the West Indies and the USA.

"We do fully expect that [Wade] will come back into this T20 squad for that Indian series post the World Cup," Bailey said. "This was a great opportunity to give Josh, who's been on an enormous amount of tours across a number of formats and hasn't really had much playing-time opportunity.

"Alex Carey is obviously the wicketkeeper in [ODIs], but just making sure that if Josh does get an opportunity through an injury to Alex, that he's ready to go and he's got some game time under his belt."

The T20I series gets underway in Durban on Wednesday with all three matches played in the same city across five days.