Australia captain Aaron Finch returned to form with a fluent 63 against Ireland to keep their T20 World Cup campaign alive but hamstring injuries to three different players including him is a cause for concern for the defending T20 world champions.
A comfortable win was soured by multiple injuries including one to Aaron Finch after the captain had put in a match-winning hand at the Gabba.
Finch, who will go for medical scans on Tuesday, batted for all but 19 balls of Australia’s innings and then took to the field for the start of his side’s stint with the ball, before pulling up in discomfort after a sprint and came off the field.
Australia finished their bowling innings with Matthew Wade handed the captaincy reins, while they required three separate substitute fielders for Finch (right hamstring twinge), Tim David (left hamstring) and Marcus Stoinis (unknown).
Early signs suggested Finch’s injury was of the most concern for the defending T20 world champions given the 35-year-old’s history of hamstring injuries.
“Really a hammy twinge I think, I will get a scan tomorrow, I have a history of them. It doesn’t look bad at the moment but let’s see how it goes after the scan,” said Finch during the post-match presentation.
“It wasn’t the easiest wicket, it was a lot slower than what we expected. They changed their pace really well and bowled a lot of cutters early in the innings, it was hard to get a rhythm and we did well to get 180,” he said.
With this win against Ireland, Australia pushed their net run rate up to -0.304, still below that of England, but they moved to the second spot in Group 1 standings with five points in four matches. On the other hand, Ireland are in fourth spot with three points.
–IANS
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