Former Australia Captain Aaron Finch suggests his reservations about replacing Axar Patel in India’s Squad for the ICC Men’s ODI World Cup 2023.
Ashwin’s chances in India’s World Cup Squad
With the injury sustained during the Asia Cup campaign, Axar Patel was ruled out of the three-match ODI series of Australia tour of India in 2023. With India leading the series with two victories, they are set to play the third ODI match on September 27 at Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium.
With the return of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma for the third ODI match, India will be facing Australia at full strength. In the absence of Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin has displayed his bowling skills enough to collapse Australia’s top-order in the second ODI match helping India seal victory with a 99-run difference.
Winning the toss Australia chose to bowl where Ruturaj Gaikwad and Shubman Gill opened for India while Spencer Johnson opened the bowling attack for Australia. While Ruturaj Gaikwad was dismissed by Hazlewood with 8 runs, Shubman Gill and Shreyas joined a partnership to score 200 runs. Shubman Gill scored 104 runs and was sent out by Green while Shreyas Iyer scored 105 runs and was sent out by Abbott.
KL Rahul had scored 52 runs on 38 deliveries and was sent out with Green, while Ishan Kishan was sent out with 31 runs. Suryakumar Yadav was impressive as he scored 72 runs on 37 deliveries. With Jadeja’s 13 runs, India set up a huge score of 399 runs in 50 overs losing 5 wickets.
With a huge target of 400, Matthew Short and David Warner opened the innings, while Mohammed Shami opened the bowling attack. Matthew Short was sent out with 9 runs while Steven Smith was sent out with a duck by Prasidh Krishna. Due to the rainfall, the overs were reduced to 33 overs and target was set to 317 runs.
David Warner scored 53 runs on 39 deliveries and was dismissed by Ashwin. Other batters were sent out with low figures as Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja dismissed three wickets each. Prasidh Krishna scalped two wickets. With batters struggling to face India’s intense bowling attacks, Sean Abbott scored 54 runs on 36 deliveries. With Hazlewood’s 23 runs, Australia was all out scoring 217 runs on 29 overs.
India is in the final preparations for the upcoming World Cup 2023 as they are currently playing a three ODI match series against Australia. On this occasion, the former Australia skipper Aaron Finch thinks Ashwin would struggle to get into the final squad for the World Cup.
“I think he (Ashwin) might struggle to make it to the final 15, but as somebody who has played so much cricket, I think the rest of the group that is with the Indian team for this current series against Australia, they could learn so much about big gameplay,” Finch said.
“Because Ashwin is somebody that stands up in big games, whether it’s a Test match or a T20 game, he has done it all throughout his career. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s there at the moment as a mentor around the group, but I don’t see him making that last 15, unfortunately,” added Finch.
India will be playing their warmup matches against England on September 30 at Barsapara Stadium and the Netherlands on October 3 at Greenfield Stadium before the World Cup 2023.
