As many as 12 spots are up for grabs in Australia's 30-man roster for the World Baseball Classic in March, national team coach Jon Deeble said today

After having half-a-dozen games to prove their worth in the Claxton Shield in Sydney last week, Australia's fringe players have another chance to impress selectors during an eight-game series against Taiwan, starting in Perth on Saturday

Australia will take a 40-man squad - missing several Major League Baseball stars already guaranteed selection for the Classic - into those games as well as another two-match series against Japanese champion Chiba Lotte Marines on February 13 and 14

The final squad was previously thought likely to be named after the completion of the Claxton Shield, the national title, won by Queensland on Saturday
But Deeble said no definite plan had been put in place, and a more sensible approach was to hold off announcing the squad until after the two international series

The World Baseball Classic, the sport's biggest-ever international tournament, begins on March 3, with Australia to play Dominican Republic, Venezuela and a strong Italian side in Florida

"There's probably still 10 or 12 spots that haven't been put to bed, so there's plenty of positions open" Deeble said today
"If (the team) had already been picked, we would have named the guys by now and we would have taken them to play against Taiwan
We wouldn't have gone with these 40 guys
We want to see them against world-class opposition
And it would have been silly to name the team before playing these two international series"

Major League player Justin Huber is expected to join Boston Red Sox recruit Trent Durrington in the Australia side for the Taiwan series after missing the Claxton Shield

Other notable additions include Claxton Shield MVP Brad Dutton, the Queensland shortstop who topped the batting averages (.536) in Sydney after originally being left out of the provisional 60-man national squad

Deeble also highlighted pitchers Wayne Lundgren (New South Wales) and Matthew Gahan (Queensland) as fringe players who had mounted strong cases for selection
Gahan struck out a competition-high 13 batters during his four appearances and 15 innings of work in Sydney
His earned-run average (ERA) of 0.60 was also a competition-best
Lundgren finished with the lowest opposing batting average for pitchers (.111) while finishing second in ERA (1.04) and tied fourth in strikeouts (eight) during his two starts

Australia plays Chinese Taipei three times in Perth between February 4 and 6, before the series switches to Geelong and Altona in Victoria for five games from February 8-12