- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
As Australia have struggled in this ODI series against England, opening batsman Aaron Finch has become a curious lightning rod for criticism.
A huge number of Australian fans, including many Roarers, have disparaged Finch despite his prolific run-scoring, arguing he is scoring too slowly and hindering his team in the process. It’s a patently ridiculous claim. As much can be discerned by looking at the list of the highest runscorers in ODI cricket over the past 12 months.
Finch has scored 680 runs at an average of 62 in that time, a magnificent return. What his many critics should note is that his strike rate of 94 over that period is better than 12 of the 18 batsmen above him on that list. Better than the strike rates of ODI stars such as Joe Root, Kane Williamson, Hashim Amla, Eoin Morgan, Martin Guptill, MS Dhoni, Ross Taylor and Faf du Plessis.
If Finch is supposedly hurting his team with slow scoring, then so too are many of the leading ODI batsmen in the world. Of course, the dissing of Finch and his scoring rate is the by-product of the inevitable scramble for a scapegoat as any team falters and their followers seek to pin the blame.
For some reason people thought that Finch, who scored tons in the first two ODIs, was as worthy of criticism, or even more so, as his batting colleagues who had failed to capitalise on his fine anchoring innings.
Australia’s middle order has been a major weakness ever since the retirement of Michael Clarke and the decline of George Bailey. Finch is clearly aiming to help counter this issue by being the bedrock of Australia’s innings. In constructing patient tons like he did in Melbourne and Brisbane, he allows other batsmen the freedom to indulge their attacking instincts, safe in the knowledge he is holding up an end.
Finch has done his job well. It was his teammates who failed to capitalise on the sturdy platform he laid for them.
(AFP PHOTO/ANDREW YATES)
England may have overhauled the prevailing wisdom about ODI batting with their hyper-aggressive batting, but 50-over cricket still frequently requires batsmen to play anchor roles. Root and Morgan do just that often for England, accumulating steadily while dynamic batsmen Jason Roy, Jos Buttler and Alex Hales go for their shots.
With Finch batting steadily from one end, Australia have the likes of David Warner, Mitchell Marsh and Marcus Stoinis to take on the bowlers. When those batsmen can’t complete that task, it is folly to start blaming Finch. Instead, he should be praised for being Australia’s most consistent batsman over the past 12 months.
In that time, Finch has incredibly passed 50 in seven of his 11 knocks, which equates to a ratio of 64 per cent. Compare that to the fifty-plus ratios of Australia’s two best batsmen, Warner (31%) and Smith (24%).
Warner has still had a fine year in ODIs, with 678 runs at 56, but Smith has been very poor, with 367 runs at 33 at a genuinely slow strike rate of 82. If any one player is to cop heavy blame for the dire state of Australia’s ODI batting at present, it should be the skipper.
When Smith arrived at the crease yesterday, Australia’s required run rate was a very manageable six runs per over to chase down England’s total of 302. By the time he departed for a dawdling 45 from 66 balls, that required rate had ballooned to 7.62 runs per over, an incredibly tough task on a slow SCG pitch and one Australia could not handle as they lost by 16 runs.
Smith has scored at a strike rate of just 79 so far across this series, which is much too slow when you’re playing against the most attacking batting line-up in the world.
Not only has he laboured with the bat for some time now, but Smith’s on-field captaincy has been ordinary, too.
It is Smith, not Finch, who needs to step up to help put this floundering Australian ODI team back on track.