Aaron Finch, the Australian T20 Captain, has come out and stated that he finds opening the innings as his most comfortable position because he has a very good record opening for the country but batting where it suits the team balance is important.
Being appointed Australia's T20 Captain for the series in UK and Zimbabwe by Cricket Australia, he has a responsibility on his shoulder. Finch batted in the middle order for Australia in their last T20 assignment and has been batting at no.5 for Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League.
He was recently quoted saying to the Cricket.com.au about his T20 game that, "I've had a lot of success opening the batting for Australia, A lot of it (the batting order) will depend on the makeup of the side, If you look at our side, there are three or four guys who have opened or do open the batting for their Big Bash franchise or have done it for Australia. It's important to put your own agenda aside and make sure that you balance the side and not push anything else"
He further talked about it, while also shedding light on the challenge and overall team, and said, "For me, it will be about seeing what the makeup of the side looks like with me at the top or me in the middle.D'Arcy (Short) played really well in the tri-series recently. We've seen the results 'Maxi' (Glenn Maxwell) has had when he's opened the batting in T20 cricket for Australia. It just depends purely on the structure of the side and where you see your match-winners performing the best."
Finch has led for Australia in the limited overs game before, he says it has helped him better as an overall cricketer.
"I'm probably a little bit calmer out on the field, the more you captain, the more you play, the more you learn. At the time I thought I knew my stuff about T20 but you look back and you're still learning, you're still developing your own game, you're still trying to find a process that works for you consistently. You'll just see a wiser, calmer head."
Looking back at Australia's T20 triangular series win over New Zealand and England, where under David Warner the team played some of its best in T20 format. Aaron Finch said, "What we noticed in that series is that we were very confident in our abilities but we're also very calm, We didn't allow teams to settle against us with bat or the ball. Our new-ball bowling was outstanding, although there was a couple of games where they got away early, but they're equally allowed to play well as well"
"People took a real responsibility upon themselves when they were in a position to win the game for the side. That was a real positive, a positive that all the boys can take into that one-off match against England and the tri-series in Zimbabwe."
"Everybody performed their job really well but there was a real calmness around the group. We were chasing 240-odd at Eden Park but there was an unspoken confidence that we were good enough to get the job done if we stuck to our processes and played to our own strengths. That was the real key – we all played to our own strengths. We didn't go away from what we know works for us"
"That can often happen when a player comes into an international squad early on, you think you have to play a different way to what got you there. We just had guys doing their job really well and we had a lot of success. Hopefully, we can take that in with us and I've got full confidence that we can."
(Inputs from Cricket.com.au)
