NEW DELHI, April 22: Aaron Finch, all
of 24, and in his first year of international cricket, is in a crucial phase of
his career. And the hard-hitting batsman, who wants to make the most of it, is
loving the Indian Premier League experience. Getting picked by Daredevils and
playing alongside Virender Sehwag, Finch is hoping to learn a lot from the
legend.
When asked if he had picked up anything
from Sehwag, his eyes lit up as he said, “Of course, he’s one of the best in
the world, and he has been around for a long time, so any time I get to sit
down and talk cricket with him, that is invaluable. You learn a lot when you
discuss batting with him.”
He went on, “I think some of the things
that he brings to the table, like his attitude to batting, his general
positivity and just the way that he plays… You’ve seen how he’s played for the
last 10 years, he never takes a backward step, he keeps playing his own way the
whole time, and that’s what he’s been encouraging everyone else to do.”
Continuing, he said, “Soon, I think
you’ll see that coming out in the guys. At the moment, people are second
guessing themselves, probably not backing themselves enough when they first
walk in to bat or first get the ball, but I think tomorrow you’ll see that guys
will walk out with authority.”
Finch, who did well in his two matches
for Australia in T20 against England – he was Man of the match in one of them –
has also had a good experience in Champions League in South Africa in 2010.
When asked whether there was pressure or was he trying too hard because of
Sehwag and Warner, he said, “Well, of course there’s a lot of pressure on when
you walk into an environment like this, when there are 50,000 screaming fans,
and it’s never easy to just walk in and blast them.”
He added, “Sehwag is always encouraging
the guys to keep backing themselves and execute their skills. I just haven’t
done that yet, I haven’t executed my skills properly. Most times I’ve gone for
a big shot, I’ve gotten out, but hopefully a big score is not far away, and
hopefully I can get away tomorrow if selected and really contribute to a win. That’s
what I’m here to do – to win games for Delhi – and hopefully I can do that
sooner rather than later.”
Talking of pressure, he added, “I think
it puts a lot of pressure on everyone! There’s a lot of expectation on the
Delhi franchise and the Delhi team. They’ve got a great reputation and such a
great support base, so obviously one win from four games is not ideal. But like
Greg said earlier, we can definitely see ourselves getting back into the
tournament. We’ve got a few games at home now, hopefully we can string a few
wins together. But I think it’s all about momentum in Twenty20, and if you can
get on a bit of a roll, you can do serious damage to a lot of teams. And when
you’ve got the star power that we’ve got on the top in Sehwag and Warner, and
the bowling stocks that we’ve got with our spin and our quicks, I think that
all it is going to take is for all of us to click together and finally gel
together, and then I think you’ll see some good results.”
The straight-talking Finch admitted, “I
won't deny that there is pressure. It's never easy to just walk in and start
hitting with 50,000 screaming fans in the stadium."
While talking about the wicket at Kotla,
especially for T20, Finch added, “I think it’s quite different, coming from the
conditions in Australia to the ground here. It’s obviously strange. It’s a
great challenge, though. I think with the new wicket they’ve rolled up for
tomorrow, it’ll provide a bit of life for the bowlers and it’ll also give a
chance to the batsmen to play their strokes. In games in the past here, the
wicket’s been pretty slow and pretty low, so it’s made scoring quite tough. But
I think tomorrow it’ll be a bit more high-scoring and there’ll probably be a
bit more stroke-play.”
No comments:
Post a Comment