Australia vs India 2018: Allan Border Doesn't Want to Push Aaron Finch Down the Order

Former Australian skipper Allan Border doesn’t want to push Aaron Finch down the order after the first innings flop. Finch went for a booming cover drive on the third ball of the first innings against Ishant Sharma to have his stumps rattled. That shot didn’t go down well with former Australian captain Ricky Ponting.

Consequently, Ponting questioned the strategy of sending Aaron Finch at the opening position as he has had his trouble against the moving ball. However, Allan Border believes that the Australian team management must put their weight behind Aaron Finch. Border feels if Australia will push Finch down the order, it will have an impact on the Australian opener confidence.

Aaron Finch had a good start in Pakistan.

“I think it’s unlikely that the change will be made in any event, but Australia needs to accept it’s already made the call for him to be its opener in this Test,” Border told Fox Sports.

“It’s fair to review his position for the second Test in Perth, but doing it in between innings is a big call.”

Meanwhile, Aaron Finch had a reprieve when Ishant Sharma overstepped when the ball was hitting the stumps in the second innings. However, Finch was unfortunate to go back after he was given out even without edging the ball. Surprisingly, Finch decided not to go for the review.

Furthermore, Border believes Australia must go for their target in a conventional manner. Australia was defensive in the first innings as they had scored their runs at run-rate of 2.38.

“Australia shouldn’t come out for its chase with an aggressive approach, it should just occupy the crease and turnover the strike because the pitch doesn’t look like one where you can stand and deliver,” he said.

“It looks as though you should be able to, but instead it’s slowing up a little bit. The outfield is slow as well. There’s a reason we’ve seen the best part of three innings with no team scoring freely.

Australia needs another 259 runs for the win whereas India is seven wickets away from the famous win.