Ricky Ponting's judgement on Finch's form slump
Former Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting has delivered his verdict on ODI captain Aaron Finch’s form slump.
After an inspiring series win India, the Australian side is regarded by many to be a dark horse as the ICC World Cup approaches.
Finch though, has been in a highly-publicised slump dating back to the Test series against India on home soil last year.
He has passed 50 just once in his last 12 one-day innings.
Ponting though, has backed Finch to emerge from the extended slump in time for the upcoming World Cup, throwing his support behind the embattled captain.
“He’s been Australia’s best performed one-day batsman in the last couple of seasons. He’s made more hundreds than anybody else,” he said prior to the third ODI.
“Although he’s recently gone through a real tough time, if he can get through the other side of that before the World Cup, it could be – as hard as it sounds on him – it almost could be perfect timing.
“He’d rather be going through that now than going through that at the start of the World Cup and having your captain completely out of form going through an entire World Cup.”
Despite his struggles at the crease, Ponting said Finch’s selection came down to more than just his batting.
Aaron Finch's captaincy cannot be underestimated over the last few months. His leadership has been instrumental in the turnaround in Australia's short-form cricket. This current team is a very close group.
— Adam White (@White_Adam) March 13, 2019
Finch’s captaincy, Ponting said, had been above reproach in spite of his individual struggles.
“His captaincy, from what I’ve seen in the last few months even though he hasn’t been batting that well, has looked really sharp and he’s going to have a great squad of players.
“He’s the man, for me, to captain Australia throughout hopefully a successful World Cup campaign.
Tactically what I’ve seen, he’s looked sharp.
“It’s always a challenge (for) the captain, if you’re not going well yourself, to not let anybody know that it’s affecting you.
“It always affects you as a player when you’re having a bad trot, but the best leaders that I’ve ever seen have been the guys that haven’t got too high when they’ve been going too well, and haven’t got too low when they’ve been going poorly.”