IPL team or Australia? Aaron Finch reveals which team is tougher to lead

Australia won ICC T20 World Cup 2021 under Aaron Finch’s captaincy.

Aaron Finch is considered one of the best captains for Australia in white-ball cricket. The opening batter captained Australia to their maiden ICC T20 World Cup title in 2021. The right-handed batsman played 103 T20Is during his career, and captained the side in 76 of those.

With 3120 runs at an average of 34.29 and a strike rate of 142.54, Finch retired as one of the greatest batters for Australia in the shortest format. He also slammed two centuries and 19 fifties in T20I cricket.

Notably, Finch also played 92 matches in Indian Premier League (IPL), smacking 2091 runs at an average of 24.89, including 15 half-centuries. He played for nine teams and led the now-defunct Pune Warriors India team during his IPL career.

Leading in IPL was probably the hardest: Aaron Finch

During a conversation with The Cricket Monthly, when asked to pick the toughest between leading a team in the IPL and captaining Australia, Finch picked the former, citing it’s for a short period of time.

“IPL was probably the hardest, because you’re coming together for a short period of time. At Pune Warriors, I came in as a replacement player and then two or three games later, I was captain. I just didn’t have the time to get to know everybody in the squad, which is really difficult,” he said.

“Captaining Australia, you’ve got some of the best players in the world all the time, so my job was pretty easy there. Everyone knows what they’re trying to do. I wasn’t as good in the IPL as I was playing for the Renegades or for Australia. At times, the pressure of trying too much and trying to force it a little bit much was there,” he added.

Notably, Finch played for nine teams during his IPL career. He made his debut in IPL 2010 for Rajasthan Royals (RR). He last appeared in the IPL in 2022, where he played for Kolkata Knight Riders. Delhi Daredevils (now Delhi Capitals), Pune Warriors India, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Mumbai Indians, Gujarat Lions, Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru are the other teams he represented in the tournament.

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