Former Australia middle-order batsman and the current skipper of Middlesex Adam Voges feels his county teammate Steven Finn is on the verge of getting a recall to the England team and tipped him to be the part of the English squad for the upcoming Ashes scheduled to held from November 23. He bowled his County to the brink of Division One Safety in the Specsavers County Championship in this week only.
Finn finished with his best bowling figures of 8/79 at the Lord’s to help his county Middlesex to a thrilling Championship win over Lancashire which promoted Voges to voice his opinion on the return of Finn.
Voges who had played 20 Tests for Australia at a relatively older age retired last November, but boasted of a terrific Test average despite not scoring much in the last few outings. He feels Finn is finding his best form and rhythm at just the correct time.
“Steven bowled as well as I’ve ever seen him bowl in a game of cricket,” said Voges. “We were two bowlers down with Toby Roland-Jones and Ollie Rayner off the park with side strains, so for Finny to stand up and lead our attack the way he did was magnificent. He had rhythm, his pace was up, and his areas were good.
“There was enough in the wicket that if you put it in those good areas you’d get something out of it and I think he did that consistently well. I asked him to bowl a lot of overs, and he did that too. He did phenomenally well.”
England travels Down Under in November for five Tests and five ODI’s followed by a T20I tri-nation series also involving New Zealand from February. After bagging his maiden five-wicket haul in his Championship return after three years, Finn is hopeful of an Ashes return.
“I felt that I bowled consistently and that my pace was there for most of this game. I’m content with where my game’s at so it’s really up to the selectors now to see who goes Down Under.
“It’s an exciting prospect to be in the mix. I’ve got the experience of playing in Australia, both in ODIs and Tests, and those experiences have been good and bad, so I’d like to think I would add to whatever group of players go down there,” Finn was quoted as saying by Sky Sports.
“We’ve had some tricky wickets to bat on during the back end to this season, and it’s been tough work for our batting group, but we’ll stick together and prepare hard for Taunton. There’s another game to go, we’re aware of that and fully understand what we need to do,” Voges said speaking on the remainder of the season for Middlesex.