Finch: ‘hard to justify’ on Aussie players who skip tours to play in second phase of IPL 2021

Australian cricket team will leave their country for the West Indies tour on June 28. They will play 5 T20I and 3 ODIs in the Caribbean in July. After that, they are scheduled to play 5 T20Is in Bangladesh between August 2 and 10. But not many familiar faces will be seen in the Australian team on these tours. The team that will go to Bangladesh will not have David Warner, Steve Smith, Pat Cummins, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Kane Richardson, Daniel Sams, and Jhye Richardson.

Aaron Finch, the captain of Australia’s limited-overs cricket, thinks that these cricketers have a reason to leave the Bangladesh and West Indies tours. But the cricketers who have pulled out of the tours and want to play in the IPL again in September, are hard to justify in this regard.

Finch understands that the players have been affected by the government’s policy of spending at least 14 days elsewhere in the IPL, after a long period of biological protection, followed by panic attacks over the Covid-19 infection and the return of the country. But for this opener, playing for the country is more important.

Among those who have not been in the two series is former captain Smith with an elbow injury. Meanwhile, Sams, who was tested positive for Covid-19 while playing in the IPL 2021, has already requested the selectors not to keep him. And Finch says the decision to rest Warner and Cummins was made before the World Cup and the Ashes. But the rest of the cricketers decided not to take part in the tours, surprising Finch. That’s why Dan Christian, Ben McDermott, and Ashton Turner have been called. Fast bowler Wes Agar, who has not yet made his debut, has also been included in the squad.

Australia is going to play a total of 10 T20Is with West Indies and Bangladesh to understand the strength of the team before the T20 World Cup. Finch is frustrated that most of the cricketers in the main team are not available at this point.

Finch has taken part in the IPL several times for different franchises. However, he has not been featured in this edition of IPL. The Aussie captain thinks it’s hard to justify IPL return behind players missing tours.

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