ADELAIDE: Australia captain Aaron Finch revealed on Thursday he has a 70 percent chance of playing against Afghanistan in the side's final Group 1 match in Men's T20 World Cup at Adelaide Oval on Friday. But at the same time, Finch was firm in mentioning that if he feels pain in his hamstring or anything else around it, he won't play in the match.
"Maybe 70/30. But I'll test it out probably this afternoon to make sure that I'm not hindering the side at all leading into the game because I think that's the worst possible scenario is that you leave the guys short out there with one player fewer," said Finch in the pre-match press conference.
With hints around him potentially playing his final T20I match for Australia after having retired from ODIs, Finch quashed that sentiment coming into play for deciding to feature in Friday's match.
"It won't make it harder one bit. If I feel like it 1 per cent would be compromising the side's performance, I won't play. If I don't feel confident in my hamstring, then I won't play. That might be in the first effort that I do today, might be in the last one. If I feel any pain or anything like that, I won't play."
Both Finch and Tim David had pulled their hamstrings in Australia's Super 12 match against Ireland and didn't field for a majority of the second half of the innings. Finch confirmed that David's scene is very similar to his: a fitness test deciding the fate for participation in Friday's match.
"He's in exactly the same boat. He'll get worked out today, and we'll know more during training, I guess, the likelihood of both of us playing, one of us, neither of us, whatever it looks like, but exactly the same. You don't want to compromise the team's performance by having a guy go down who comes in with a niggle. That'll just be one of the things we go through, as well, and make sure it's all ticked off this afternoon."
With Australia needing to defeat Afghanistan by a very big margin to have a slim chance of entering the semi-finals and then wait for the result of England's last match against Sri Lanka on Saturday to see if they are in the last four or not, Finch disclosed that the defending champions hadn't talked about net run rate scenarios. IANS
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