Aaron Finch Was The Biggest Disappointment For RCB In IPL 2020: Aakash Chopra

Aakash Chopra, the former Indian opener-turned commentator, believes that Australian white-ball captain,  Aaron Finch, turned out to be the major disappointment for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL 2020.

Chopra made his views while reviewing the Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore campaign in the recently concluded season.

Finch was bought by RCB in order to bolster their top-order and relieve some of the pressure from the shoulders of Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers but despite getting repeated opportunities, the swashbuckling opener failed to lighten up the IPL before being eventually dropped from the set-up.

Aaron Finch got as many as 11 opportunities on the trot, something Aakash Chopra observed wasn’t the case with Moeen Ali.

“Aaron Finch was the biggest disappointment for RCB this season. They had put huge stakes on him and stuck with him for a long time as well. You expect the Finch hitting from him.” Aakash Chopra said in a video published on his official Facebook page

“He got a whole lot of chances to bat. So no one can say that he played in this team and was not given the chances. You can say that for Moeen Ali, that he was in and out of the team but Aaron Finch played all the matches, I mean he played 10-12 matches at the start.” he added.

‘You had more expectations from Aaron Finch’- Aakash Chopra

After having dropped Aaron Finch, the RCB thinktank turned to Josh Phillipe to fill in as an opener alongside the ever consistent, Josh Phillipe, but even that move did not work, forcing Virat Kohli to take it upon himself to open the innings in the Eliminator against SunRisers Hyderbad, with Finch moving to the No.3 spot.

Chopra added that RCB would have liked Aaron Finch to play the kind of role that Quinton de Kock played for the Mumbai Indians, something that the Australian failed to pull off.

“But the form was not seen at all. Neither the form was seen nor the runs. He was even dropped at the end and then brought back again because Joshua Philippe did not do a great job either. But you had more expectations from Aaron Finch. Because imagine if Devdutt Padikkal was playing well from one side and Aaron Finch had been playing well, then the pressure and responsibility would have been less on Virat and AB de Villiers.” Aakash Chopra said.

“And you need a Quinton de Kock type of performance or say the KL Rahul or Mayank Agarwal type of performance that suddenly catapults your team to greater heights. But that did not happen with this team. And the main reason for that was the big-stake player who was played, that is Aaron Finch and from RCB’s perspective he was a bit of a disappointment.” he signed off.

Talking about Aaron Finch’s performances, the Australian opener managed just 268 runs in 12 innings at an average of 22.33 and a strike-rate of 111.20 with just one half-century.

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