Australia one-day international and Twenty20 International captain Aaron Finch admitted that he simply did not have enough runs in the recent Test series against India, and rued not sticking to his plans.
Finch managed scores of 0, 11, 50, 25, 8 and 3 in the first three games before he was dropped for the final match as India won the four-match series 2-1.
The right-hand batsman found some form ahead of the ODI series against India by hitting a 39-ball 42 against Hobart Hurricanes to help Melbourne Renegades win a Big Bash League encounter. Finch regretted not having taken a break from batting when things weren’t going his way.
“In the past I’ve been very good at being able to manage how much I hit, how much I train in terms of working on feeling good versus working on technique, trying to work on footwork patterns and stuff,” Finch admitted.
“It was my choice to keep hitting balls. You’re searching for form, you’re searching for something, and you don’t want to walk out after getting out in a Test match or a one-dayer, or anything, and think ‘jeez if only I had have hit some more balls’.
“That was a really hard thing to do, to not bat. I know that I’ve had success not batting in the past. I just didn’t have the courage to stick to it.”
The opening batsman does not find his name in the squad picked for the two-Test series against Sri Lanka and has no qualms admitting that he didn’t have the runs to warrant a place in the squad.
“I hadn’t got any runs,” he said. “That’s the reality.”
He added, “Two 50s in five Tests. I said this before when I got dropped from the one-day team, you’d like to have some bullets to fire back but there’s just none when you’ve made two 50s and average 16 for the series. I think it would have been a pretty easy call to be fair.”
