Australia coach Justin Langer has conceded "all-time great" Steve Smith was too good to ignore for Australia's World Cup squad, but expressed sympathy for the unlucky Peter Handscomb.
Handscomb couldn't have been in much better nick ahead of the World Cup, Langer saying he had had "a brilliant time of it".
Australia is sitting on an eight-match winning streak, with Handscomb a key pillar in Australia's ODI upswing.
The Victorian has scored 479 runs at 43.54 in 12 one-day knocks this year, and broke through for his maiden ODI ton in Mohali to help force a series decider against India.
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Handscomb's returns in the later five-match Pakistan series weren't so flash, and he registered scores of 7 and 8 in the final two matches.
Two players had to make way with Smith and David Warner both eligible to return following their bans - and for Handscomb and Ashton Turner, they were the unlucky ones.
Turner's non-selection was no surprise given he didn't get a gig against Pakistan, despite his Mohali heroics. However, Handscomb has the right to feel aggrieved after providing stability and form in the middle order.
While Warner is having a day out in the IPL - with an Indian legend saying he must be picked - question marks remain over Smith, who is still looking for top form and is, like Warner, recovering from elbow surgery.
Langer conceded Handscomb was "terribly stiff" to miss out, but revealed the 27-year-old was content following a discussion at the weekend.
"Selection is always hard, there's no doubt about that. It's the toughest part of the job. It has been for as long as I've been coaching," Langer told RSN radio.
"Pete is terribly stiff to miss out. He's all class. I spoke to him yesterday. He's literally all class.
"I can give you all the clichés, I can try to find some good reasons, but the truth is, I can't tell you how close he was to being selected. He had a brilliant time of it.
"He played exactly the role that we talked about for the backend of the ODI summer and in India and the UAE. He did a great job. He's super fit and a terrific young bloke. He gets on and does his job.
"But we just felt that Steve Smith would play that same role and Steve Smith is one of the all-time greats of Australian cricket."
Everyone in the side saw the bottleneck coming - notably, even on tour, skipper Aaron Finch admitted it would be a "bloody hard" decision to make on who makes way for Smith and Warner.
"When the side is playing so well, it's going to be difficult," Finch said ahead of the fourth ODI against Pakistan.
"I will definitely have my views, and Justin [Langer] and I, we talk all the time, every day about selections and team make-ups, different scenarios and things like that.
"At the end of the day, they're the selectors and it's an incredibly tough decision.
"Whatever balance you go with in that 15-man squad, there's going to be some very unlucky blokes out there."
Handscomb also provides a second-string wicketkeeping option, meaning Alex Carey's hands will be so protected, that even the International Union for Conservation of Nature may want to get involved.
After the IPL, Smith and Warner will link up with the World Cup squad for a pre-tournament camp in Brisbane next month before two warm-up matches in England.
Langer has previously said that Smith and Warner would work better coming into a team that is enjoying success, and they will be ready for the World Cup campaign, which kicks off on June 1 against Afghanistan.
"I said 12 months ago it would be great for those guys to come back into the team, and they've got to work hard to get back into the team," Langer said.
"We're at that point now where the team is flying, the team is going really strongly and like always, they'll be part of it.
"It was a strong process over the last nine or 10 months particularly, just to keep an eye on how the boys were going. They went through a lot of life education themselves because of what had happened."
