Australia ODI captain Aaron Finch’s formula for success

Australia captain Aaron Finch, coach Justin Langer and the team’s leaders are set to spend the next two months in the kitchen coming up with a recipe for ODI success.

After losing a fifth successive bilateral one-day international series – against South Africa – Australia will be searching for a winning method with just 13 matches left until its World Cup defence starts in England next June.

Following England’s rise to the top of the ODI team rankings it’s been suggested that the Australians should emulate its oldest rival and attack all guns blazing from ball one like Eoin Morgan’s men.

Similarly, India’s sustained excellence in the 50-over format by conserving wickets for a late-innings blitz could be seen as the perfect blueprint to construct a playing style. But Finch says following one model is not the way forward. Instead, a pinch of England and dash of India might be what’s needed for his side to start tasting that sweet success again.

“It’s about finding our balance and finding what works best for us as a one-day team,” Finch told reporters after Australia’s loss to South Africa. “You look at the way India play, they’re generally quite conservative in that first 10 and then really solid through that middle 30 overs where they rotate the strike, they lose minimal wickets and then load up at the back end.

“I don’t think it’s all about going head-on and smacking it all out attack the way that England play, but I think if you can mix and match and find what best fits your batting seven.

“I think it’d be naïve and ignorant to think every team can play like that or every team can play like India. There’s two totally different ways to go about it but they’ve both been ultra-successful in the last couple of years.” Australia opted for a more English approach on Sunday by promoting T20 dynamo Chris Lynn from No.4 to open the innings, a move made with the intention of fighting fire with fire against the Proteas’ fearsome pace attack. The move backfired when Lynn was out for a golden duck, but Finch said in hindsight he would make the same decision and hinted the Queenslander is likely to stay at the top of the order.

The power option is one Australia has tried in recent times with Finch, Lynn, Marcus Stoinis and Glenn Maxwell in the top order, and the style of play has been dictated by the personnel. “I think that if you look at our line-up on paper at the moment you’d say that it’s an attacking side and it’s a fairly one-dimensional side in terms of attack versus workers of the ball and your traditional batsmen,” said Finch, who has been part of Australia’s recent top-order collapses in ODI cricket.

“Not to disrespect any of the players by any stretch of the imagination but it’s probably that way. And we haven’t got it right for a while and that does expose you in the middle-order at times when you come up on some different wickets or a really good attack who get on top of you early,” he said. That could be bigger issue for the Australians, one Finch eluded to speaking to the press. It’s not just the recipe his side is after, it’s finding the right ingredients too.