NEW DELHI: Aaron Finch, the Australia limited-overs captain, hailed
the team’s 3-2 one-day international series win over India as “unbelievable”, and praised the “resilience and fight” shown to bounce back from a 0-2 deficit.
By winning the fifth ODI here by 35 runs on Wednesday, Australia became the fifth team in history to win a series after having lost the first two games. Finch’s
men did what no other Australia side had done.
“The resilience and fight that we showed being down 0-2, it would have been
easy to roll over in those small moments in the game, just let them drift away
and India win the series,” Finch said.
“But the fight that we showed, we’ve had our backs against the walls for quite
a while now, so I’m really proud of the group. From 2-0 down to win 3-2 is pretty
special. I’ve been coming here for a while now trying to win and haven’t, so have
a lot of Australian players, so it’s a special moment,” he said.
Usman Khawaja, the Player of the Series, and Pat Cummins starred for the
visitors with bat and ball respectively. While Cummins took 14 wickets from five
games, Khawaja hit his maiden ODI ton in Ranchi and followed it up with
another hundred in Delhi to finish as the highest scorer in the series with 383
runs, an ICC report said.
Cummins, who last played an ODI series in November 2018, seemed satisfied
with the way he took to the format after a long haul of Test cricket at home.
“I’ve played a little bit of one-day cricket before, but it felt like I hadn’t really
clicked in this format,” he said.
“It felt like I bowled well in the Australian summer, so glad it keeps on clicking.
Hopefully, it continues for the World Cup,” said Cummins.
Australia still have a five-match series against Pakistan in the UAE to give final
touches to their ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 preparations, where they are
the defending champions.
Finch had admitted that Australia were underdogs at the World Cup, especially
in the absence of Steve Smith and David Warner, but was confident of his team’s
ability to play the same brand of cricket they played in India to defend their title.
“People have written us off for quite a while now,” Finch said. “We always knew
that the plans and the style that we wanted to play are all there, can win us the
World Cup, win us big series against great teams, and India are definitely a great
team.”
“It’s about ourselves believing we’re good enough and sticking to our game plan.
We did that for four of the five games and India were too good in a close one in
Nagpur. To get over the line in three of them was a great series all round,” he
added.
(AGENCIES)
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