Struggling for a big score since his century in the first match against England, Australia’s Aaron Finch (in pic) desperately seeks runs. With semi-final against India at the SCG knocking on the door, there is no bigger occasion than this to get back to runs for him. The opener spoke to media on the sidelines of their practice session on Tuesday. Excerpts
On the pitch at SCG
I haven’t really had too much of a look at it. last time I played here it looked like the wicket would spin quite a bit but it didn’t and it played really true. Still two days out and it’s hard to tell. The wicket can change quite a bit in two days, especially here.
On if he has spoken to anyone to improve his batting
I’ve spoken to Diva (Australian batting coach Michael Di Venuto) quite a lot, and Boof (Head coach Darren lehmann). It’s nothing that I’m concerned about. It’s just to probably refresh a couple of points that go back to the basics of my technique and my batting and something that I fall back on when I’m not getting a hell of a lot of runs.
On semi-final against India
It’s going to be huge. It’s obviously the biggest game that I’ve ever played. You can’t put it any other way. It’s a huge opportunity to show our skills off as a team. We’ve played some great cricket over the last two years and there’s no reason we’re not going to go into this game confident.
On India’s turnaround
They’ve gone with a game plan that seems to be clicking for them now. After the Test and the Tri-series, their plan doesn’t look to have changed too much. They’ve been here for four and a half months and looking to be aggressive and adapting their lengths a little bit. (Mohammed) Shami is bowling well. He’s swinging the ball which is a huge factor at the start of the innings. There’s no rocket science — they’re bowling well, they’re batting well. They’re going to be tough to beat.
On India’s bowling
They’ve been bowling well. Shami is up there with the leading wicket-takers of the tournament — (Umesh) Yadav, Mohit Sharma, they’ve been bowling well as a group. With our side we’re confident that we can negate that. Yes they’ve got some quality spinners but at the same time, wickets are generally pretty true here. Whatever happens I suppose if we stick to our game plans and play well it goes a long way towards winning the game. It’s about being aggressive without being over the top.
On strategy to counter Ravichandran Ashwin
We’ll sit down as a batting group this afternoon and talk about their bowlers in a bit more depth. Ashwin’s a quality bowler. He’s bowled well throughout the tournament. He’s bowled in some difficult phases of the game and done well.
On containing India in last 15 overs
What’s important in the last few games is that they’ve had one top order batsman batting deep in the innings. Rohit sharma batted deep in the last game (vs Bangladesh), that makes a huge difference because you’ve never got two new batsmen at the crease. That’s the important thing for all teams, not just India. Our job is to take early wickets and put as much pressure on them as we can.