Australia continued their recent T20I domination in the Sydney T20I against Pakistan but rain denied their victory. Aaron Finch, the Aussie captain, is very unhappy with the ICC rules as he feels that it took away their deserving victory.
On Sunday (3rd November), the hosts Australia and the visitors Pakistan played the opening T20I of the three-match T20I series. It was the record-breaking game for The Aussie skipper Aaron Finch as he became the most-capped T20I captain for Australia.
The hosts’ captain Aaron Finch decided to field first after winning the toss. In that rain-interrupted first innings, Pakistan scored 107/5 in 15 overs. The rain stopped that game for the first time when Pakistan were battling on 88/3 in 12.4 overs.
Pakistan opener and captain Babar Azam played the most positive knock in that innings. In his international captaincy debut, Babar scored 59 not out off 38 balls (5 fours and 2 sixes). Also, the wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan played a crucial role in that innings as he scored 31 runs off 33 balls.
Australian bowlers once again bowled very well, especially the pacers. Mitchell Starc (2/22) and Kane Richardson (2/16) both took two wickets each in that innings.
Aaron Finch started the innings in a stormy way
As per the DLS method, Australia got the revised target of 119 runs in 15 overs. Australian captain Aaron Finch bashed the Pakistan left-arm pacer Mohammad Irfan in that short incomplete innings. When the rain once again interrupted that game, Australia were batting on 41/0 in 3.1 overs. Opener Finch was not out on 37 runs off 15 balls and another opener David Warner remained not out on two runs (four balls).
That match was never started again as it was called off. Australia were just 1.5 overs away from their deserving victory as they needed to score 33/0 at the end of the five overs.
Australian captain Aaron Finch feels frustrating with the rules of the 20-minute innings break despite the rain cut the overs. He feels that they could secure a victory if that innings break would be shorter. Even less than ten more minutes would be enough to reach the match deciding position.
Finch told Fox Sports in the post-match interview, “If you’re cutting overs off the game and you still have a 20-minute break it doesn’t make much sense to me. When you lose a few overs and then you still have a 20-minute break… I thought that was really interesting. But it’s part of the rules and you can’t do much about it.”