Having led Australia to T20I World Cup in 2021 apart from leading Big Bash league side Melbourne Renegades to the BBL title in 2018-19 season, former Australian captain Aaron Finch remains one of the best T20 format players in the format’s history. While Finch played in 103 T2OIs for Australia amassing 3,120 runs apart from Australia’s second highest run-getter in T20 format with 11,458 runs and BBL’s second highest run-scorer with 3,311 runs, the Australian also played for nine Indian Premier League franchises including his captaincy stints with Pune Warriors during his T20 career and has now called captaining in IPL the hardest of all among IPL, Australia and BBL.
“IPL was probably the hardest, because you’re coming together for a short period of time. At Pune Warriors, I came in as a replacement player and then two or three games later, I was captain. I just didn’t have the time to get to know everybody in the squad, which is really difficult. Captaining Australia, you’ve got some of the best players in the world all the time, so my job was pretty easy there. Everyone knows what they’re trying to do.I wasn’t as good in the IPL as I was playing for the Renegades or for Australia. At times, the pressure of trying too much and trying to force it a little bit much was there,” Finch told The Cricket Monthly.
Finch was first picked up by Rajasthan Royals in 2010 before he joined the then Delhi Capitals in 2011. After two seasons with Delhi, Finch had joined Pune warriors India in 2013 where he also captained the side. The next year saw Finch being bought by Sunrise’s Hyderabad before he joined Mumbai Indians in 2015 followed by spending two years with Gujarat Lions. In 2018, Finch was bought for Rs 6.2 crore by Punjab side before he was bought for Arsenal 4.4 crores by Royal Challengers Bengaluru in 2020. Finch then played for Kolkata Knight Riders as replacement for Alex Hales and it also proved to be his final season in IPL. During his IPL career, Finch played in 92 matches scoring 2,091 runs at an average of 25.19 and his tally of 456 runs for Pune Warriors in 2013 IPL being his best. Finch shared about his debut in IPL in 2010 when he came as a replacement player and the following years. “I made my IPL debut for Rajasthan Royals. I played one match under Warnie (Shane Warne) as a replacement player, the last game of the year. It’s funny how your career can take different turns. At the end of that year, I’d signed a three-year deal with Rajasthan. I was an uncapped player, and that was all above board at the time. We went to the Champions League, and I had already got my three-year deal with Rajasthan locked away. Everyone else was playing for an IPL deal, really, but it didn’t bother me how I went, and I performed well. And then, just before the auction, they decided that everybody was in the auction. Now teams couldn’t sign uncapped players (on longer contracts),” Finch shared.
The 39-year-old, who retired from International cricket in 2023, finished his T20I career with a total of 3,120 runs for Australia and also led Australia to the T20 World Cup win in 2021. Finch, who was also part of the 2015 ODI World Cup winning Australia squad, also talked about how he would struggle for making a spot his own in the IPL franchises. “So then I ended up at Delhi (Daredevils) for a couple of years and didn’t play a huge amount. There were guys like David Warner, KP (Kevin Pietersen), Ross Taylor, Mahela Jayawardene in front of me. After two years, when the team hasn’t had success, you’re the first one to go, because those [other] guys are superstars and legends. A few things like that just happened along the way. I played a year at Sunrisers (Hyderabad), where myself, (David) Warner and Shikhar Dhawan were all in the same side. Three openers, mixing and matching between opening and batting three. It gets to the end of the year and they said, “Well, someone’s got to make way.” And it happened to be me,” recalled Finch.
The T20 veteran also spoke about how he would have loved to stay at one franchise and how things work in IPL auctions. “That’s a good way to look at it. Either I was a good enough player to keep getting picked, or I just wasn’t quite good enough to be that one- or two-franchise type player. Of course, I’d have loved to stay at one franchise the whole time. But that’s one part of having a mega-auction every three years. Players probably missed that opportunity to really build a legacy at a club. There’s not a huge amount of players that have done it right throughout. Even Rohit (Sharma) started at Deccan (Chargers), before moving to Mumbai Indians). Yeah, Shane Watson was a legend for Rajasthan (Royals) and then he goes and wins the title with Chennai (Super Kings). It’s just strange how it all works,” said Finch.
