Defending T20 World Cup champions Australia continued their fine form in T20Is with a win in their second match of the ongoing series against Sri Lanka and securing a 2-0 victory in the T20I series over the Lankans. A big positive for the side was the return to form of their skipper Aaron Finch, who carried the bat with an unbeaten 61 off just 40 balls in the first T20I fixture between the two teams.
Finch has struggled to score in recent games and played a bit-part role in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 season. The Australian skipper struggled to cement a place in the playing XI of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), having gone unsold at the IPL 2022 mega auction and then joining the two-time IPL champions as a replacement for Alex Hales.
Finch set up an unbeaten partnership with fellow veteran batter David Warner in the first match of their series. His performance is sure to give him a much-needed boost. Warner has now revealed that he had texted Finch during IPL 2022, where the latter had scored just 86 runs at an average of 17.20 in five matches.
Warner said that he had a chat with Finch about his technique, and insisted that the 35-year-old had seemingly worked on the same. "I just said to him not to walk out into the ball. Let the ball actually do its work in the air if they want to bowl nice and full," Warner was quoted as saying by foxsports.com.au.
"If you stay still and keep that leg stump line, you're going to get full contact with the ball and if it swings late, it's going to go down leg (stump). He was probably moving a bit too much, he was walking straight into the line of the ball, and was still moving at the time of the delivery. When you're a batter you don't really want to do that unless you're physically charging," he added.
The two sides will meet for the final T20I on Saturday, June 11, to wrap up their series. They will also play against Sri Lanka in five ODIs and two Tests.
