Australia vs India 2018-19: We Picked Up Wickets at the Right Time - Aaron Finch

Australia won the opening game of the three-match series by 34 runs. The host’s captain Aaron Finch believes his team bowlers picked up the crucial wickets at the right time. Australia had the visitors staring down the barrel of the gun when they scalped three wickets inside the four overs to have India reeling at 4-3.

The recovery from that point was always going to be a difficult one. However, Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni added 137 runs for the fourth wicket to keep India stay afloat in the game.

Fine start for Australia.

But as soon as MS Dhoni got a tough decision from the umpire, Rohit Sharma was battling a lone battle. The asking rate was always on the rise and the Indian opener had to go all guns blazing.

Furthermore, Rohit Sharma didn’t get the support of either Ravindra Jadeja and Dinesh Karthik. Meanwhile, Aaron Finch is happy with the performance of his team.

On the other hand, Australia was able to tick the right boxes. Peter Handscomb delivered the goods with the bat as he scored 73 runs off just 61 balls. Furthermore, Usman Khawaja and Shaun Marsh scored fifties to help Australia get to a par total of 288 runs.

Jhye Richardson was the pick of the Australian bowlers as the youngster breathed down the neck of the Indian batsmen. Richardson took four wickets and conceded only 26 wickets in his 10 overs quota to help Australia take a 1-0 lead in the series.

Aaron Finch said in the post-match presentation, “Yeah, very pleased with the performance. I think the way they rebuilt, Rohit and MS, we knew they will take it deep and we managed to pick up the wickets at the right time. I thought we got a par total, the partnership between Usman Khawaja and Shaun Marsh was very good in the middle overs and Peter played a gem”.

“In the middle period, we played really well. We didn’t score a lot of runs in the middle overs but we saved the wickets for the final overs. We have powers hitters like Maxi and Stoinis at number 6 and 7. Jhye and Jason are full of confidence, they have great skill sets and both have a good future ahead of them. We can always improve, our execution with the ball was at times off. It will be a good series”.

Australia came up with a collective team effort and this win must have added to their confidence. The second ODI w