T20 World Cup 2021: Aaron Finch Hints At Promoting Matthew Wade Up In The Batting Order vs New Zealand

Australia skipper Aaron Finch has hinted that Matthew Wade is being promoted up in the batting order in the upcoming T20 World Cup final versus New Zealand.

Coming in at number 7, Wade struck 41 runs off 17 balls against Pakistan in the semi-final to take his side over the line in a run chase of 177. Aaron Finch revealed that they’d thought of sending Wade earlier to tackle leg-spinner Shadab Khan, but didn’t.

In the final against New Zealand, Wade could be promoted up to attack his favourable match-ups against left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner and leg-spinner Ish Sodhi.

Matthew Wade. Credits: Twitter

“Yeah, potentially. We talked about it the other day (vs Pakistan). The possibility of Matt (Wade) going in a little bit further up the order especially with Shad (Shadab Khan) still having a couple overs to go, but we decided to hold him back towards the end and it paid off there,” Aaron Finch said in the pre-final press conference.

“He’s (Wade) someone who is really versatile in our order. We’ve seen him open the batting, bat at three, and now he’s down at seven. He provides a huge amount of flexibility for our team,” he added.

Against England, we were probably just a little bit timid: Aaron Finch

Australia suffered their only Super 12 loss to England, where they were blown away by Chris Woakes with the ball and then by Jos Buttler with the bat.

However, the Aussie skipper asserted, the players took a couple of days off and then regrouped to put dominant performances versus Bangladesh and West Indies to boost their nrr, which helped them when they qualified for the semis over South Africa despite having the same amount of points.

“Yeah, really disappointed obviously. We didn’t put in our best performance. But to have a couple of days off and to have the guys regroup on what had been I suppose a really gruelling first couple of weeks of the tournament where we turned up, had some quarantine and then trained really hard in the lead-in to the tournament.

“So to have the ability to mentally and physically freshen up for a couple of days was important, but what we did talk about touring that time was staying really committed to being aggressive. We felt as though in that game (against England) we were probably just a little bit timid and got outplayed in the powerplay by Woakes in particular, who got England off to a good start,” Aaron Finch explained.

New Zealand will be playing in their maiden T20 World Cup final, while it’s the second appearance for Australia, who lost in 2010 to England.

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