Josh Hazlewood is not expecting a starting place in Australia's T20I side against England but retains the ambition to be a three-format player at international level.

Hazlewood only has seven T20I caps to his name, the last of those when Australia were knocked out of the 2016 T20 World Cup by India, but with two back-to-back World Cups coming up, there is plenty of incentive.

He showed his effectiveness when he returned to the Sydney Sixers colours in the latter stages of last season's Big Bash League, claiming five wickets in five matches with an economy rate of 6.22 as the Sixers secured the title, in what was his first T20 cricket since that World Cup almost four years before. There is also an IPL with the Chennai Super Kings on the horizon.

"That's always the goal, to play every game of cricket you can for Australia," he said. "It's probably just through opportunity that I haven't, guess scheduling as well plays a part. But the T20 team has been going really well and as you expect it's stayed pretty much the same XI, they've been winning most of their games and it's a tough side to get into.

"I'll keep pushing and take the opportunities as I did for the Sixers and hopefully for Chennai and hopefully keep knocking on the door."

Australia have won nine of their last 11 T20Is and in the annual update of the ICC rankings earlier this year went to No. 1 for the first time. Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Kane Richardson have been the frontline pace attack for much of that success playing seven of those 11 matches together and between them have 35 wickets.

Daniel Sams, the Sydney Thunder left-armer, and Hobart Hurricanes fast bowler Riley Meredith have also been included in the 21-man squad on the strength of their Big Bash returns.

"I'm pretty aware of where I sit," Hazlewood said. "The team keep winning and the guys are going well, especially the bowling unit."

Hazlewood is much more likely to feature in the ODIs having returned to that side during the one-day series in India in January after injury forced him to miss the 2019 World Cup. He felt he bowled "pretty well" in the intersquad 50-over match on Sunday as he continued to shake off the rust from five months of downtime.

While Australia's T20I side has enjoyed a strong run of results, Hazlewood knows they will have to overcome England's enviable depth in white-ball cricket across both formats on the tour.

"England are flying, [they have a] couple of new faces we've got to look at," he said. "Tom Banton, I know I've seen [Dawid] Malan but he's in the runs again. Eoin Morgan just runs a really steady ship and everyone knows their roles. They come in and their confidence is always high.

"They have all bases covered in white-ball cricket, probably seen a bit more depth from them this year with having to have different players in the squads. They know their roles and the white-ball team is as good as ever."

The T20I series begins on September 4 with all three matches in Southampton followed by the three ODIs in Manchester.