Aaron Finch-led Australian team mostly played strong cricket in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. But while his team was knocked out from the semi-final of that tournament, it hurts the Aussie limited-overs captain every day.
The record five-time Cricket World Cup winners Australia participated in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 in England as the defending champions. Just before that tournament, they managed to build up a strong ODI side, and they became the more powerful ahead of that competition due to the inclusion of Steven Smith and David Warner.
Australia started the ICC CWC 2019 powerfully after winning their opening game against Afghanistan by seven wickets. Though they beat West Indies by only 15 runs after once their batting was in trouble, and suffered a defeat against India by 36 runs, they back on track from the next game. The defending champions won all the next five games and put them to the strongest position in that tournament.
However, they failed to carry that strong momentum for further and lost the next two matches – against South Africa in the final round-robin stage game and against England in the semi-final. Due to injuries, some crucial players missed out the semi-final game and Australia faced an eight-wicket defeat against the hosts.
It hurts every day: Aaron Finch about his team’s exclusion from the CWC 2019 semi-final
Taking the latest award of the Australian ODI player of the year, the limited-overs skipper Aaron Finch spoke about their heartbreaking finish in the CWC 2019.
Finch said according to THE AGE, “That (injury) didn’t help but, at the end of the day, that’s what made us a good side for 30 years now. The Australian cricket team has, in the one-day format, (always been that) you can always push each other in the nets and you have good hard net sessions but that (injury) is a byproduct of being competitive. It just happened it all compounded that day.
“It hurts every day. You think about it and it’s something you look back on and think what you could have done differently to change the result but you move on after a while.”
In that semi-final, opener Aaron Finch scored a golden duck. While Australia were bowled out on 223 runs (49 overs), the hosts England chased down that target in 32.1 overs after losing just two wickets.