Australia opener Aaron Finch has accepted that he himself is to be blamed for his axe from the ODI series against Pakistan.
The right-handed aggressive batsman was a part of the squad for the Chappell-Hadlee trophy, where he could just score 22 runs in three games. Finch also hasn’t scored a century in his last 19 innings.
“I was disappointed but I can’t really kick cans,” Finch said.
“I haven’t made many runs in the last couple of series. It’s something like 215 runs on 10 hits and that’s just not really good enough. When you have guys performing well in this [the BBL] and the Matador Cup – of course, I’m disappointed but I have no one to blame but myself.
“They just said make some more runs. When Trevor [Hohns, the interim head of the selection panel] rang me I just said ‘I can’t disagree with you, which is the sad thing’. Usually, when you’re dropped you want to be able to fire back some bullets but I had absolutely nothing,” he added.
“You never want to be dropped, and any time you get an opportunity to play for Australia you take it with both hands no matter what’s happening around you. I’m disappointed not to have that opportunity now but I only have myself to blame. I can’t be too disappointed.
“I need to stop making 30s and 20s and start making match-winning scores. I haven’t done that. I’m trying to get the side off to a good start but I’ve got out when I’ve done the hard work, which is frustrating. I’m hitting them beautifully at the moment and picking it up well but just getting out. I got deceived a bit for length today but that happens when you’re going hard in a T20. When a guy gets in at the top everyone can bat around them but I’m not doing that at the moment – I’m exposing new batsmen at once, which is not ideal.”
Finch has been replaced by Usman Khawaja, whose last ODI came against Ireland at Benoni. Selectors have called up two new faces in form of Chris Lynn and Billy Stanlake. George Bailey was another big name to be dropped after his poor form in Chappell-Hadlee trophy. Hilton Cartwright, who made his Test debut against Pakistan at the SCG, was also left out.