Captain Aaron Finch warned Australia will embark on their World Cup defence next month with confidence riding high after completing an ODI sweep against Pakistan on Sunday. Written off after a torrid 15 months which saw Australia win just three of 18 one-day internationals, Finch led the 2015 World Cup winners from 2-0 down last month to beat Virat Kohli’s formidable side 3-2, Australia’s first series win in India since 2009. They then romped to a 5-0 rout of a depleted Pakistan.
“We’ll go to the World Cup with a lot of confidence now, even after a lot of people wrote us off,” said Finch who was declared man of the series for his 451 runs including two hundreds and two fifties.
“Potentially we had a real focus coming here and that was our last hit-out before the World Cup 2019 so we wanted to go into that tournament with a lot of momentum,” he said after inflicting a fourth whitewash on Pakistan in a bilateral series.
Winners of 2015 World Cup at home, Australia had endured a miserable time in limited-overs cricket since last year’s ball-tampering controversy in South Africa.
