Australian white ball captain Aaron Finch indulges in a throw down at the nets at R. Premadasa Stadium yesterday

Australian spearhead Mitchell Starc during practice

Australia’s Steve Smith during a batting session in the nets

• Wary of Hasaranga threat in white ball format

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

The Australian cricketers, quite aware of the difficulties the people of this country are currently undergoing, are keen to bring some joy by playing a brand of cricket which they are renowned for throughout the world.

“We are here to play cricket and hopefully, we can bring some joy and some entertainment to Sri Lanka,” said Australia’s white ball captain Aaron Finch in a virtual interview with the media yesterday. “This is the first time we’ve been here since 2016 which is a long gap between two tours. It’s such a special place to tour, the hospitality that you get here, the friendliness of everyone and their love of the game is unbelievable.”

“The High Commission (in Sri Lanka) is aware of it at the moment and we are going to work with them with a couple of appearances. In the last couple of years, we haven’t been able to get out, to appearances with local people wherever we’ve travelled and school kids and things like that. That’s going to be something like starting to get back a little bit to normal. 

“I remember on the last tour up in Kandy we had an unbelievable experience with underprivileged kids. That is something that you could live with forever. Hopefully we can get back to that as soon as we can and have a positive impact here.”

Finch, captain of the winning Australian T20 World Cup in Dubai last year, said winning the series against Sri Lanka and tuning up for the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia were their prime objectives.

“Both go hand in hand. We want to win every game we play on this tour. We understand that having only 11 games until the T20 World Cup is not a huge amount of game time in this format. We are hoping that we can continue our momentum that we started in the World Cup against Sri Lanka in our home summer and the one-off T20 against Pakistan. The more momentum you can create and the ability to continue to narrow down your process and your plans as a team is really important.”

Finch rated Sri Lanka as a “dangerous side” in their conditions and the danger that a bowler of Wanindu Hasaranga’s calibre presents to them in the upcoming white ball series.

“As we’ve seen in the past we had a couple of close series against them, they play in these conditions as well as anyone, and they are a very dangerous side. Hasaranga, he’s had an unbelievable couple of years in T20 cricket and showed recently in the IPL how damaging and effective he can be. Even when the wickets are flat, he’s shown a huge amount of skill and a huge amount of temperament as well.”

Australia has six players in their T20 squad who have just finished a season with IPL and Finch believes the exposure his cricketers get in the subcontinent has made it easy for them when they tour here.

“I would say you play more in these conditions with guys and train with them, it gives you relationships with people you play with and against all round the world. The more us as Australians are exposed to the subcontinent conditions it’s a really good thing for our development as a team and as individuals. World cricket is getting stronger and stronger because of the relationships between playing together and against each other around the world.”

With so much of cricket taking place in all three formats, gone are the days when touring sides arrived well ahead of time and tried to get themselves acclimatised to the conditions and pitches the subcontinent offers them before the start of the tour proper.

The start of the T20I series against Sri Lanka at the R. Premadasa Stadium on 7 June will see Finch pairing off with David Warner in the openers slot for the first time since the T20 World Cup in the UAE ended in November 2021.

“To be honest we have a long friendship and a long relationship at the top of the order. That’s something that wouldn’t take too much time to be up and running with. We’ve both been around for a long time. David’s been in fantastic form at the IPL, he’s never been out of form really. He is probably as good as any player that Australia’s had over all three formats of the game. That partnership we want to get off to a positive and good start. It will be nice to be back together.”

In the absence of Warner, Finch has opened the batting with Ben McDermott and with Travis Head. His own personal form has also been a topic of discussion in cricket circles where his last 14 T20I innings has produced just one 50.   

“It’s probably getting down to basics, and it’s straightening up my technique a little bit. Over the last couple of months my stance has got more and more open. That is something that I got to readjust slightly. Those are small technical changes but just getting back to the process has made me a pretty good player in a long period of time in this format. It’s more important than anything.”   

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