Aaron Finch will captain Australia in the World T20, declares George Bailey
Australia selector George Bailey has rushed to the defence of incumbent Aaron Finch and has stated publicly that the Victorian, despite his recent slump in form, will captain Australia come WT20. After a horror run of form, stretching back to the BBL, Finch’s place in the side has come under fire.
Australia have had a forgettable start to their ongoing five-match T20I series versus New Zealand, losing each of the first two games, but more than the defeat, a major point of concern has been the form of skipper Aaron Finch. Coming on the back of a BBL season where he averaged 13.76, Finch registered scores of 1 and 12 in the first two T20Is and with multiple batsmen knocking the door, questions have been raised over the place of Finch, who has not registered a single fifty in his last 15 T20 innings.
There have even been suggestions that a couple of more failures could see Finch get the axe mid-way through the New Zealand series, but Australia national selector George Bailey has publicly come out and rubbished these claims. Bailey has confirmed that ‘captain Finch’ will not just continue to lead Australia in the ongoing series, but also will captain them come the World T20 in November.
"He's got a terrific average, he's the captain of this side and he'll be the captain of this side at the World Cup," Bailey told News Limited, reported cricket.com.au.
Finch averaged a healthy 33.87 in T20Is in 2020, and his criticisms have largely stemmed from his horrendous showing in both the IPL and BBL. After averaging 22.33 in IPL 2020, Finch endured an even worse season with the Renegades, scoring just 179 runs across 13 innings at an average of 13.76. Bailey said that Finch admitted that he was exhausted at the time of the BBL and insisted that he would have been better off taking an extended break.
"He was pretty zonked. But he tried to do the right thing and get back to help a young Renegades side.His reflection on that was that he probably should've sat longer out and come back a bit fresher,” Bailey said.
The BBL is behind Finch, though, and lying ahead is a do-or-die match on March 3 versus the Kiwis, which will be played behind closed doors. Bailey insisted that Finch is now fresh and claimed that the Aussie skipper has been hitting the ball sweetly in the nets.
"What we got (in New Zealand) was the freshened up, train your backside off for a couple of weeks (version of Finch) – and again he's hitting the ball so well in the nets."
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