David Warner, Cameron Green and Josh Hazlewood, who all played in Australia's last T20I, are being rested ahead of the ODI series while Steven Smith, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Glenn Maxwell are all injured although Starc was dropped for the final match of last year's World Cup.

Hardie is slated to bat at No. 7 although most of his recent success for Perth Scorchers has come at No. 3. He may get an opportunity at No.3 later in the series as Australia look to use the games to experiment with just under 12 months to go before next year's T20 World Cup. He is one of four all-round options Marsh has to make up the overs of the fifth bowler alongside himself, Marcus Stoinis and Short who can bowl handy offspin and has experience bowling in the powerplay.

The debuts of Johnson and Hardie in particular are a precursor to Australia's planning ahead of the ODI series and the 50-over World Cup starting in October. While the formats are different, Johnson and Hardie are also in Australia's squad for the ODIs in South Africa ahead of the World Cup, with Short heading home after the T20Is.

Australia have a long injury list at the moment with Cummins (wrist), Smith (wrist), Starc (groin) and Maxwell (ankle) all unavailable for the South Africa ODI series. All four are expected to be fit for the India series that starts on September 22 but coach Andrew McDonald told SEN radio on Tuesday that Johnson and Hardie had an opportunity to stake a claim for a berth in Australia's final ODI World Cup 15 should any of those players fail to recover.

"I think we're far from settled just with the injury room at the moment," McDonald said. "The information on all of them is they will be right for the World Cup which is positive but you never know obviously when you're coming off injury. If there was a reoccurrence then that could shift our thinking a little bit.

"Is this an audition potentially for spaces that may open up, in South Africa? There's no doubt about that. We feel as though we've got some exciting talent coming through. You look at Aaron Hardie in that all-rounder space, getting his opportunity. Spencer Johnson as well, a left-arm fast bowler. We've got some new players coming through and we feel as though it's the right time for that as well to blend that youth with experience.

"If anything were to move or shift on us, we've got that information from South Africa.

"It's remiss of me not to mention Tanveer Sangha in that spinning department. He's a young exciting legspinner. If something were to happen to Adam Zampa we're hoping to get some game time into him in South Africa."

McDonald added Maxwell's latest setback with his leg was slightly worrying given he has experienced similar soreness with his previously broken leg on his international return in the ODI series in India back in March.

"It's concerning," McDonald said. "And the reason why it's concerning is it's happened a couple of times. If you remember back to the three-match series against India he played in the first one and pulled up a bit lame from that and then coming into camp for this one has had another small setback. On the back of what was a horrendous injury that he suffered there's always going to be a balance between the load that he can take on and unfortunately, he's had a small setback here but we're confident that he'll be right for the World Cup."

McDonald is not leaving for South Africa until Wednesday having taken some extra time at home with Assistant coach Michael Di Venuto taking charge of Australia's side for the T20 series.

Australia's XI: Matt Short, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh (capt), Josh Inglis, Marcus Stoinis, Tim David, Aaron Hardie, Sean Abbott, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa, Spencer Johnson