Australia can’t quit on the Aaron Finch experiment, says Victoria coach Andrew McDonald
Aaron Finch might be a man under fire following a lacklustre Boxing Day Test showing, but he’s found support to keep his spot at the top of the order.
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Australia should persist with its experiment of opening with Aaron Finch, Victorian coach Andrew McDonald says.
Finch failed to fire on his home deck, making just three runs in his second dig which followed eight runs in Australia’s first innings.
But McDonald says Finch deserves 10 Tests facing the new ball.
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National short-form captain Finch’s highest score against India this summer is a 50 in Perth.
The 32-year-old has scored 278 runs in five Tests at an average of 27.8 since debuting against Pakistan in the UAE in October.
McDonald does not open with Finch in Sheffield Shield, preferring to bat him in the middle order where he averaged 50 last summer.
Former Australian all-rounder McDonald said the jury was still out on Finch’s top-order credentials.
“We don’t open him and I suppose that lends a little bit to our thinking as to where we think he is,” McDonald said.
“(But) we have two pretty good openers (Marcus Harris and Travis Dean), one of them (Harris) is playing Test cricket at the moment, so we haven’t had the opportunity to bat him at the top because we feel as though we’ve had better options at the time.
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“Justin’s seen him in that light and played him at the top.
“We need to start judging people over a period of time as opposed to two or three Test matches where we can be really quick to judge and say ‘that player’s not good enough in that position, or they should be batting somewhere else’.
“I think the sample size of three Test matches opening so far, it’s not enough for me to make an educated opinion on whether he’s an opener or not.
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“They’ve backed him as an opener; you’d like to think they’d back him again for the next Test match.
“That’s where they maybe start to take stock and look at what the Sri Lankan series looks like, after that Test match, and start to work out whether he’s an opener going forward and I’m still not sure four Test matches is enough to make a strong case for or against.
“I’d like to see him have 10 Test matches at the top of the order and then we all come back and judge him on the performances that he’s put out (to decide) whether he’s an opener or not.
“They thought that he was an opener, they’re still strong on the fact that he’s an opener so I’d like to see him get an opportunity in Sydney, for sure.”
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