Barty serves as fine example to Finch
The end is nigh for Aaron Finch. Nothing to be sad about there. He should do what Ash Barty did on her last day. Free himself by telling the mirror, ‘I’m done.’
Endings are freeing. Liberating. You just have to accept you’re done. Aaron Finch is on his last legs as an Australian cricketer and he’ll be supremely well advised to take a leaf from Ash Barty’s sweetheart of a book.
The leaf about embracing the fact that a wonderful chapter of your life is about to close … and then swinging for the fences as a result.
Barty’s beautiful tome, My Dream Time, includes a section about the day of her Australian Open final.
She knew it was the end of her career. Nothing to be scared of or saddened by there.
She surrendered to the desire to express herself through her tennis exactly as she wanted to.
To hit the ball with glee. To play how she liked to. To be her true and real self and stuff the result.
Whether or not she beat Danielle Collins was immaterial, which probably ensured she would. But all Barty really wanted to do was go out in a manner that pleased her.
“I’d like to tell you I feel stunned or shocked, but I feel good,” Barty writes of her last day at Melbourne Park.
“Great, even. All day long there’s a kind of pulsing wave rushing through me, not of excitement or fear or adrenaline or even relief – just the sense that something important and right and true is happening.
“Something is starting and something is finishing. It’s done. I’m done.”
Finch deserves a similarly buoyant farewell.
He’s done wonders. He’s carried himself superbly as Australia’s white-ball captain when his hammy hasn’t frazzled like a guitar string. In a side of superfit fellas, he looks like he might otherwise have his own lawnmowing business.
He’s performed admirably. If he gets to play against Afghanistan on Friday, it may be his last hurrah. No matter that Australia is likely to be squeezed out of the tournament.
Externally, he deserves a rousing ovation and internally, he deserves to do what Barty did. Feel good about it. Bloody great, even. He’s done.
From Under-10s soccer gala days to T20 World Cups, you know you’re in trouble in a round-robin when you “need other results to go your way”.
It’s even more precarious for the Australians. They need more than results to go their way.
They need the margins of those results to be agreeable. They need New Zealand to lose to Ireland on Friday afternoon.
They need to beat Afghanistan on Friday night. If NZ wins, Australia needs England to lose to Sri Lanka on Saturday.
Finch and Tim David have hamstring strains. They’ll learn their selection fates after fitness tests on Thursday.
“They’re working through what they normally would after coming off a flight anyway,” chairman of selectors George Bailey said as the pair had a light jog at Adelaide’s Karen Rolton Oval on Wednesday.
“It’s nice to have the extra day for them to be able to recover and get a bit of work in, and we’ll keep assessing them over the next 48 hours.
“The fact they’re out there moving, always after a travel day it’s going to be pretty light anyway, but to see them out and moving and getting up to moderate speed is pretty good.
“I don’t think the time frame will be different to any other game. We’ll probably get together tomorrow post-training and work through that.
“Then I guess it’s just how much risk you’re willing to tolerate.”
Finch played five Tests at an average best not mentioned in public. His white-ball contribution has been superb.
The 146 ODIs and 17 hundreds at an average (38.89) to be applauded.
The 103 international T20s, averaging 34.28, and his highest scores of 172 against Zimbabwe and 153 versus England, which remain first and third on the all-time list for hit-and-giggle.
His crowning moment was leading Australia to its first T20 World Cup title last year.
Something right and true is happening, because it’s time for Finch to go when Australia finishes at the World Cup, but he can feel good about all of it.
The decision on his availability should be left to him.
He’ll do the right thing by the team. A selfish bastard he ain’t ever been.
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