After Dean Jones, the current limited-overs captain of Australia, Aaron Finch, has also spoken on former Aussie skipper Michael Clarke’s statement which said that the Australian team “sucked up” to India skipper Virat Kohli in order to secure lucrative deals in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Clarke had claimed that the Tim Paine-led side had not contested hard enough with the Indian team in the 2018-19 series. He had termed Aussies were “too scared to sledge” Kohli or other Indian players due to the influence of IPL.
“Everybody knows how powerful India are in regards to the financial part of the game, internationally or domestically with the IPL,” Clarke had said.
“I feel that Australian cricket, and probably every other team over a little period, went the opposite and actually sucked up to India. They were too scared to sledge Kohli or the other Indian players because they had to play with them in April,” he had added.
Now, just like Jones, Finch too has responded to Clarke’s comments. Finch has completely denied the claims saying Clarke was entitled to his views, but the Kangaroos were just looking to find their own way of playing Test cricket.
“They were obviously not being nice to impress because they wanted an IPL contract. There is nothing about it. If you ask anyone playing on the field, they will tell you that it was very, very tough. It was played in the right spirit, but it was very tough. Not sure where it was coming from,” said Finch on Sports Tak.
Finch said that Aussies were going through a transition. He further articulated that the Indian bowling attack was phenomenal during the Border-Gavaskar series.
“The team was going through a transition, and there were a lot of players trying to find their way in international cricket and doing that against India. Talking as a batsman, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin, you can’t hide against that kind of attack,” the 33-year-old added.
Finch expressed that Clarke might have seen something from the outside which we didn’t experience from inside.
“Michael said we were being nice, but people were just trying to find their own game, they were trying their best way to play Test cricket. But everyone is entitled to their views; he might have seen something from the outside which we didn’t see from inside,” Finch added further.
In the Test series, the Kohli-led side crushed Australia 2-1 to register their first-ever Test series win on Australian soil.
Now, later this year, both India and Australia are set to meet each other in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as the fixtures, and the venues for the four-Test series have been finalised. The Gabba will host the opening match in the first week of December.
