Aaron Finch is the only Australian captain who has led the national team to a Twenty20 World Cup title win. And this remarkable feat happened in the tournament played in the United Arab Emirates, a competition that India could not stage at home because of the rising Covid -19 numbers.
Finch’s performance with the bat in the tournament was not spectacular by any yardstick though, but he shepherded his team to win six of the seven matches, including the final against New Zealand at the Dubai International Stadium in mid-November 2021.
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The aggressive right hander showed glimpses of his form in the league matches against Sri Lanka, England and Bangladesh his scores were 0, 37, 44, 40 and 5, 0, 5 in the last three matches for an overall tally was 135, which meant he returned a poor average of 19.29, much lower than his 27 in the thirteen World Cup matches in the shortest format. In his first Twenty20 World Cup he ram into form with scores of 65 against Pakistan and 71 against Bangladesh.
Australia will defend the title after keeping it for just a year, and Finch has a wonderful opportunity to win the title a second time at his own backyard. The home Twenty20 World Cup will be his fourth one and he will begin the competition notching his 101st match; only four days he ago he completed 100 Twenty20 matches playing against England at Canberra. But he would probably have company soon in the 100 match club, with David Warner on 95 matches and Glenn Maxwell on 94.
Finch is an explosive batsman and he has scored 2741 of his 3013 runs as an opener. Often his attempt for an expansive off drive in the power play has seen his early exit, but the nature of the game demands batsmen like him to take the risk quotient to a higher level. He has hit 120 sixes and 303 short boundary shots which amply reveals his mindset to speed up things and take the game forward.
He will be Australia’s key batsman, though England had a measure of him in the recent series, Finch made only 12, 13 and 0. After retiring from one-day internationals, he has said that he would continue to play in Twenty20. In the warm up match against India, he rattled off 76 off 54 balls. “ I am happy; it was nice to get a few in the middle. It would have been nice to get us over the line (win against India), but you can’t win the World Cup in a practice game,’’ said Finch after tuning up at the Gabba.
Finch’s Tasmanian counterpart Kane Williamson rescued his side with a classy 85 off 48 balls in the last year’s World Cup final at Dubai; it was for a lost cause, but the manner by which he took on the Australian attack demonstrated his stout heart and fierce determination to challenge his rivals.
The New Zealand skipper comes into the World Cup only with seven matches under his belt after the last year’s heroics against Australia. But he played in all four matches of the home series against Pakistan at Christchurch. His last innings was a 38-ball 59 against a Pakistan attack that had fast bowler Naseem Shah and other fast bowler Haris Rauf and Mohammad Wasim and spinners Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz.
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One among the top class batsmen in the ilk of England’s Joe Root and India’s Virat Kohli, Williamson is an all format fit batsman; he has played 81 Twenty20 internationals and scored 2225 runs with fifty 6s and 215 fours. His strike rate is a modest 123.75, but he is the fulcrum to New Zealand’s fortunes and when the chips are down, he raises the bar to the next level.
It will be his fifth Twenty20 World Cup, having played the first one in 2011 in Pallekale, Sri Lanka. He made only a meagre 36 matches in four matches, but improved scoring 146, 123 and 216 in the subsequent three editions in Bangladesh, India and UAE. New Zealand has deployed him as an opener (27 innings and 886 runs) and at No.3 (38 innings and 1044 runs).
New Zealand has lost some talent with Ross Taylor and Brendon McCullum having retired, and the Tasman country largely depends in Martin Guptill (3531 runs in 118 innings) to take up the challenge from the first six over power play. New Zealand has excellent resources for the Twenty20 format in Glenn Phillips, Jimmy Neesham, Daryl Mitchell, Devon Conway, Mark Chapman, but it will always depends on Williamson to do the job he usually does with aplomb.
While Australia’s Finch is sort of a daredevil with the bat looking to pummel the opponents in the quickest possible time, Williamson is a sweet timer of the ball and looks to consolidate his team’s innings.
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