Australia T20 captain Aaron Finch takes retirement from international cricket.
Aaron Finch, a former captain of Australia’s white-ball team, has declared his retirement from international cricket. After quitting one-day internationals in September, Australia’s opening batsman, 36-year-old Finch, served as the team’s T20 captain.
He played for Australia in five Tests, 146 one-day internationals, and 103 T20 matches. In 2021, he helped Australia win the T20 World Cup. It had been a “great honour,” according to Finch, to play for Australia. He intends to carry on participating in domestic T20 tournaments, such as the Big Bash League (BBL) for the Melbourne Renegades.
“Now is the proper moment to step down and give the squad time to organise and build towards that tournament,” he stated, “realising that I won’t be playing on until the next T20 World Cup in 2024.” With 3,120 runs, Finch has amassed the most runs for Australia in men’s T20s, placing him sixth all-time. In T20 international matches, he scored two hundreds, ending with an average of 34.28 and a strike rate of 142.53.
He was a member of the Australia team that won the 2015 50-over World Cup and amassed 5,401 runs in ODIs at an average of 39.13, with 17 hundreds. The first T20 World Cup victory in 2021 and winning the ODI World Cup on home soil in 2015 will be the two experiences I love the most, he continued. “Team success is what you play the game for,” he said.
It has been an amazing honour to play with and against some of the greatest players of all time while representing Australia for 12 years. Finch broke his own record of 156 against England in 2013 and now holds the highest individual score in men’s T20 internationals with 172 off 76 balls against Zimbabwe in 2018.
In T20 international matches, only Martin Guptill of New Zealand (173) and Rohit Sharma of India (182) have hit more sixes than Aaron Finch’s 125. Before playing his first ODI against Sri Lanka two years later, Finch made his debut in a T20 match against England in 2011. In 2018, he participated in all five of his Test matches, recording two half-centuries with an average score of 27.80.
Finch was demoted from T20 captain two years after being appointed when Steve Smith was named Australia’s captain across all three forms. After the ball-tampering controversy during Australia’s Test series against South Africa in 2018, Finch replaced Smith as the white-ball captain.
He guided them to victories over New Zealand in the 2021 T20 World Cup final in Dubai and the semi-finals of the 2019 50-over World Cup. Finch continued to captain Australia in the 2022 Men’s T20 World Cup on home soil after being succeeded as ODI captain by fast bowler Pat Cummins, although the defending champions were unable to advance past the group stages.
He led Australia in 76 T20 matches and 55 ODIs. In 2022’s international matches, Finch struggled with his form, averaging just 12.42 in ODIs and 28.44 in T20s. He was a sensation in the BBL this year, collecting 428 runs to advance the Melbourne Renegades to the knockout round where they fell to the Brisbane Heat.
Finch has played for Melbourne Renegades in the BBL since the league’s inception in 2011 and has played for nine different franchises in the Indian Premier League, making him one of the most well-known T20 cricket players in the world. Finch is one of Australia’s “finest white-ball players,” according to Cricket Australia head Dr. Lachlan Henderson, who also congratulated him on a “excellent” international career. He added: “In full flight, there were few batters more powerful than Aaron. As one of only four men’s players to captain Australia to a World Cup victory, Aaron will always have a special place in Australian cricket’s history.”
