India vs Australia | Ian Chappell backs Pat Cummins to take over captaincy if Aaron Finch is sacked
BCCI
Ian Chappell believes that Pat Cummins is an “outstanding candidate” for the role of the Australian captain if the selectors decide to sack Aaron Finch from ODIs. The Aussie great has also added that Test cricket was probably the worst thing to have happened to Finch as he lost his confidence there.
Finch's technical weakness against the inswinging balls created enormous trouble for him in the last summer’s Test series against India and players like Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah confirmed that there was no end to the dilemma in the ODI series after that. Such has been Finch’s lack of confidence that he has failed to characterise his batting perfectly now and been throwing away wickets even on bad balls.
At a time, when his position in the team has come under the scanner, it seems like captaincy is too heavy an option for him to keep and Ian Chappell suggested that Pat Cummins could be a better candidate for the role if the Victorian faces the sack ahead of the World Cup.
"He's probably the outstanding candidate. They might be forced to go with Cummins, but it's not an ideal situation and it's a hell of a headache for the selectors. And it's a headache that's been looming ever since Finch started to struggle," Chappell told Wide World of Sports.
When Finch scored 62 and 49 against Pakistan on a placid track in Dubai last October, it was seen as the reincarnation of the batsman and everyone thought it would end Australia’s opening conundrum for a while. However, that didn’t transpire to reality as Finch’s weakness was found out too soon, with him scoring 158 runs in the 17 innings since his Test debut, having crossed 15 only twice. With the calls of his head growing rapidly, Chappell said that Test cricket was the worst thing to have happened to the batsman.
"It's a hell of a headache for the selectors. But you have to think about what is worse, dropping him now or dropping him in the middle of the World Cup? Probably the worst thing that happened to Aaron Finch was playing Test cricket.
"Certainly India worked him out in the Test matches, and that flowed on into the one-day series. He's playing like a man without much confidence. You get the feeling confidence was such a huge part of his one-day batting, and I'm not sure if one score against Pakistan in the UAE is going to restore that, especially if he continues to struggle through the rest of the Indian series."
