Finch confident Australia will excel
Australia limited-overs captain Aaron Finch has confirmed that he and David Warner will open the batting together at the T20 World Cup despite Warner twice being dropped by Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League this year.
Warner hasn’t played a T20I for Australia since September 2020, missing Australia’s last 14 matches across four series due to a combination of injury, rest, and schedule clashes.
He has endured a difficult IPL season across the two halves of the tournament.
Warner has scored two halfcenturies in eight innings but his strike-rate of 107.73 was cause for him to be dropped as captain by Sunrisers during the first half of the IPL season in India.
He didn’t tour with Australia to the Caribbean and Bangladesh mid-year in order to rest for the second half of the IPL and the World Cup but scored
just 0 and 2 in his first two games on resumption of the IPL in the UAE and was left out of Sunrisers’ side again.
Injury cloud
But Finch, speaking a day before departing to the United
Arab Emirates for the World Cup, backed Warner to be his opening partner for the tournament.
“Yep, absolutely,” Finch said. “He’s one of the best players to ever play the game for Australia.
“I’ve got no doubt that his preparation, while he would love to be playing for Hyderabad no doubt,
“I know that he’s still training away. He’ll be good to go.”
Finch himself enters the tournament under an injury cloud. He missed Australia’s tour of Bangladesh due to knee surgery.
“Over the last couple of weeks my recovery has progressed really well so it’s looking more and more likely that I’ll be fit and ready to go for them,” Finch said.
Challenges
Glenn Maxwell and Josh Hazlewood are in sparkling form in the IPL but Marcus Stoinis has suffered a hamstring injury. Steve Smith has been in and out of Delhi Capital’s lineup playing just two matches.
Those based in Australia have hardly had any cricket at all. Matthew Wade has not played since the Bangladesh tour after Tasmania’s two domestic fixtures against Queensland were postponed last week.
Mitchell Marsh, Ashton Agar, and Kane Richardson have played one domestic 50over match and Josh Inglis has only played two.
It’s been even more difficult for Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, and Adam Zampa.
However, despite the various issues, Finch believes his players will be ready to go.
“It’s really important to get guys up to speed as quick as possible,”