Australian captain Aaron Finch will retire from one-day international cricket, with his final match to be played against New Zealand on Sunday.
Finch has been under pressure to keep his spot in the side following a lean patch, he’s failed to crack double digits in six of his past seven ODI innings.
The 35-year-old has notched just one half-century from 13 innings this year and been sent packing for a duck five times.
Finch has played 145 ODI matches and Sunday will be his 55th game as captain, although he’ll continue to lead the men’s T20 side.
Finch guided Australia to a first Twenty20 World Cup title last year and it’s expected either Pat Cummins or Steve Smith will take over the one-day captaincy.
“Being a bit over 12 months out from the 50-over World Cup, I thought the timing was right now,” Finch said.
“It’s important that whoever takes over the captaincy from now, whoever opens the batting from now is given the best opportunity to take the team forward and win the World Cup in 2023.
“I’m very comfortable and very confident that I wouldn’t have made it that far.”
“I thank all of those who have helped and supported my journey to this point.”
Australia play an ODI series against England which opened the door for Finch to retire at his home ground the MCG.
“I could have tried to play another series, the (ODI) series against England post the World Cup and that would have been a fairy tale finish at the MCG.
“But that’s never been my style, to be self-indulgent in any kind of way.
“I’d thought about it (retirement) in the lead up to the to Zimbabwe series (last month).
“It wasn’t a thing where I woke up in the morning and just knew, but I knew it was very close to coming to the end.
“The other day, I had a good chat with the coach Andrew McDonald after the Zimbabwe series and he wanted me to keep taking a bit of time and make sure that I was making the right decision.
“I think that you need to be able to give the new captain as much space and as much time to start to ingrain the way that they want to play and take the team forward.”
Cricket Australia boss Nick Hockley praised Finch backed Finch to lead his country to T20 World Cup glory at the end of the year.
“Aaron is an enormously gifted and determined player whose outstanding deeds with the bat have been matched by his strong and inspiring leadership,” he said.
“His decision to step aside from the ODI captaincy now is typical of his selfless approach to the game.
“I’m delighted Aaron will lead the Australian team into the forthcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup where his leadership, experience and tactical nous will be integral to the defence of our T20 World Cup title on home soil.”
Source: foxsports.com
BDST: 1225 HRS, SEP 10, 2022
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