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Australia must drop Marsh or Faulkner for Finch

22nd March, 2016
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Aaron Finch should not play opener in Tests. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)
Expert
22nd March, 2016
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Two matches into the World T20, and Australia’s perceived strength is emerging as their weakness, with the balance and method of their batting a concern.

Chasing a below-par total of 157 on Monday, against a Bangladesh team missing two of its best bowlers to suspensions, Australia crawled over the line.

Despite having a terrific start to their chase, at 1-95 after 11.2 overs, Australia’s batsmen conspired to inject some intrigue into the match, losing 6-57.

There are two key issues at play here – Australia’s inability to rotate the strike with singles, and the over-abundance of all-rounders in their top seven.

There is a sense that once opponents get past the Australian top order, they can run through the side. That is because the enigmatic Glenn Maxwell is batting one spot too high at five, followed by two players who have been in poor form with the blade all summer in all-rounders Mitch Marsh and James Faulkner.

One of Marsh or Faulkner has to go. Australia’s desire to field seven bowling options is leaving their batting line-up imbalanced.

They need another specialist batsman in the side and they just happen to have an elite player sitting on the sidelines in Aaron Finch.

Forget that he’s the number one ranked T20 batsman in the world, as those ratings are fluid and sometimes nonsensical. Focus instead on the fact that, after five years of playing T20s for Australia, Finch averages 40 with the bat.

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There have been some strange arguments against Finch being made online. I have seen it repeated again and again by posters on cricket websites and forums that Finch is coming off a poor Big Bash League season. The reality is he averaged 50 in the BBL.

The prevailing criticism of Finch, however, is the claim that he has a poor record in Asia.

This also is false. He has excelled in his six T20s for Australia in Asia, cracking 252 runs at 42, including three half centuries.

Crucially, Finch also has vast experience playing T20s in India, with 39 IPL appearances to his name. His IPL career started slowly, but he has adapted well to the foreign conditions – over his past 28 IPL matches he has a solid average of 31.

Finch should come into the side at three, with captain Steve Smith moving to five. Smith is bogging the team down at three, scratching around at the crease in both innings this tournament while scoring a combined 20 from 20 balls.

Realistically, has not earned his place in the team, with a batting average of 19 after 28 T20Is. While Smith started his Twenty20 career as a spin bowling all-rounder, his recent figures while playing as a frontline batsman are no better.

In his six T20Is this year, Smith has made only 110 runs at 18, while scoring at a slow strike rate of 119. Right now, Australia would be better off with Finch still captain and Smith on the bench.

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But dealing with reality, the current skipper looks better placed at five, where he should focus on merely turning the strike over and acting as a foil to power strikers Warner at four and Maxwell at six.

Rotation of the strike has been a major problem for Australia so far in this tournament. Their batting line-up is lauded for its power and dynamism, but they are relying too heavily on striking boundaries.

Even their best batsman of the tournament so far, Usman Khawaja, has been poor in this regard. Amid his otherwise fine innings of 58 against Bangladesh, Khawaja allowed 15 dots from his 45 deliveries faced.

In high level T20 cricket you can’t afford to not score off one-third of the deliveries you face. Overall against Bangladesh, Australia played out 38 dot balls from 111 deliveries, which works out at 34 per cent of balls faced.

It was even worse against New Zealand, when dots accounted for 39 per cent of the deliveries Australia played. Particularly once the power play is over and the field is set deep, it is inexcusable for the opposition to be able to deliver so many dot balls.

T20 bowling attacks covet dot balls not just for the obvious reason of keeping a lid on runs but because a group of them often creates pressure which prompts an ill-advised glory stroke from a batsman. It is exactly these sort of cavalier shots which have brought the Australian batsmen undone time and again over their two matches in this tournament.

If Australia are to get out of the group stage they must address this issue along with the imbalance of their batting order.

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