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World Cup 2019: Return of Finch hitter

Australia captain's change in technique, mindset after torrid home season has paid dividends

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Aaron Finch’s technical change of opening his stance up to counter his weakness against the inswinging delivery has been working well so far
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Aaron Finch had hit rock bottom at the start of the year. Worse, he didn't know what to do in order to move the rock.

In the absence of senior pros Steve Smith and David Warner following the ball-tampering scandal, Finch was desperate to stand up for his country during Australia's huge home series against India late last year.

Instead, everything was crumbling around him, dark clouds seeping deep into his mind in the peak Australian summer.

Picked for the four-match Test series against Virat Kohli & Co, Australia's ODI captain was axed after three matches, where the 32-year-old neither showed the temperament nor the technique to overcome the challenges that the longest form of the game presents.

Back in his format, leading his team, the tide was expected to turn. On the contrary, it only intensified. Finch's scores in the three ODIs against India read: 6, 6, 14.

More worryingly for Finch, there was a pattern in his dismissals. The bright new cherry swinging into his vision became his undoing. In all the three ODIs, Bhuvneshwar Kumar had the Aussie's number with the in-swinger, twice getting him bowled and once LBW.

It was all too easy, and the world was watching.

Thank you, skip.

"Everything that I could, that I was doing, I was just questioning because you're looking for an answer that you don't know," Finch said after scoring his career-best 153 against Sri Lanka in London on Saturday.

"So, it can be really tough at times, when you don't know what the end result is, but you're searching so hard for something you don't know," he added.

The answer came a couple of months later against the same team that exploited his weakness to the fullest. But this time, he was on the flatter Indian tracks and in conditions that didn't offer swing.

After a third-ball duck in the opening ODI, Finch collected 37 runs off 53 balls in the following game. Although Kuldeep Yadav got him, Finch had sailed through the new-ball storm after a seemingly long time.

And then came the breakthrough moment.

Finch slammed a 99-ball 93 in the third ODI in Ranchi that not only helped him find his personal mojo again but also that of his team's.

Down in the dumps at 0-2, Australia went on an eight-match ODI winning streak with that victory in Ranchi, rallying to beat India 3-2 and then thrashing Pakistan 5-0 in UAE. Finch scored five fifties in those eight outings, including two centuries.

"I think the time in the UAE this year against Pakistan was really good. The end of the Indian series was really good, as well, in the One-Dayers," Finch said.

"I probably just changed my mindset a little bit more than anything. I started to doubt my game a lot before that in the Australian summer and there was a lot of times when I was just questioning every single decision that I was making, whether it was technical, mental, physical," he added.

Opening up stance

The mindset correction came along with a few runs, while the technical one was midway during the India series.

Finch opened his stance, moving his left leg out a bit to counter the threat of the inswinging ball striking his pads. It allowed him to drive the full balls heading towards the stumps, and declutter his clogged mind by pouncing on the opportunity to attack from the onset.

It was on display in the game against Sri Lanka, where Finch dished out two drives off his first five balls, one through mid-off and the second straight back.

"I've spent a fair bit of time working with him, but just working with him on the things he's (already) been changing," Ricky Ponting, Australia's assistant coach for the World Cup, told cricket.com.au.

"His whole set up is completely different. He's made some significant changes to his technique. You can see the way he's setting up now, he's setting up a lot more leg side of the ball to give himself more access to the ball to hit the ball down the ground.

"Before he was covering his off stump and getting a long away across his stumps. He's forgotten about his off-stump now and almost setting up down a leg stump line and allowing him to use his hands a little more," he added.

Finch said it was something he had been working over a period of time, but that he is reaping its rewards only now.

"It was a really great learning for me over the summer," said Finch. "Obviously, it would have been nice to have that at 22 and not 32, but I think overall, what I learned was you can strip it back as much as you want, but it doesn't change the basics of the game. The basics as an opening batter is to go out there and defend the good ball and score runs."

N ZONE

7 – No. of half-centuries Aaron Finch has hit in his last 10 ODI innings since start of series against Pakistan in the UAE

8 – No. of half-centuries the Australian captain has notched up since the turn of the year, the most he has ever had in a single calendar year

57 – Finch’s batting average in his 18 innings in ODIs so far in 2019 with a total of 977 runs. It is up from his average of 44.82 throughout last year (493 runs in 11 ODIs)

DID YOU KNOW?

Aaron Finch’s 153 against Sri Lanka was the highest score by an Australian captain in the World Cup, surpassing Ricky Ponting’s 140 against India in the 2003 World Cup final

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