Finch is “70-30” to play in Australia’s crucial World Cup match despite being injured

Despite suffering a hamstring strain on Tuesday, Australia skipper Aaron Finch feels he is more than likely to play in Friday’s crucial Twenty20 World Cup Super 12 encounter against Afghanistan

The hosts and defending champions likely must win the Group 1 match at Adelaide Oval to remain in the competition, and Finch stated he would not take the chance of playing if he had any concerns about his fitness.

Before training on Thursday, Finch told reporters, “Very hopeful to (play), absolutely. I’ll have a good hit out this afternoon and give it a solid test out.

“I’ll try it thoroughly this afternoon to make sure I’m not impeding the side at all,” the player said, “because I think the worst conceivable case is that you leave the lads short out there with one man fewer.”

In the victory over Ireland on Tuesday, Tim David also suffered a hamstring injury, and Finch said that the middle order batsman was in a similar situation to himself.

Finch continued, “He’s in exactly the same boat. He’ll work out today, and we’ll probably learn more about the likelihood of both of us playing, one of us playing, neither of us playing, or whatever it looks like, but precisely the same, during training.

Australia is equal on five points with New Zealand and England at the top of Group 1 with one Super 12 encounter remaining, but they have a far lower net run rate, which is used to break ties in the standings.

Only two teams advance from the group stage to the semifinals, thus Australia must defeat Afghanistan and raise their net run rate if they don’t want to rely on New Zealand or England suffering shock losses to advance.

On Saturday, England will play Sri Lanka, while the inaugural Adelaide match on Friday will pit New Zealand against Ireland.

The Black Caps had by far the best net run rate of the three teams, and captain Kane Williamson declared that when they play the Irish, they would only be concentrating on their performance in an effort to advance to the round of 16.

The level of all the teams in this competition, from the qualifying to the Super 12, he remarked.

For us, it really just comes down to keeping our attention on our cricket, trying to make those small gains from game to game, and trying to put up better performances.

Even though Ireland and Afghanistan aren’t in the running for a berth in the semi-finals, bowler Josh Little claimed they will be going all out for another upset after Ireland defeated the West Indies, a former champion, in the first round and England in the Super 12.

Everyone, he observed, “is pretty competitive.” It’s a World Cup, so anything is possible. Yes, we are going into tomorrow’s match with the expectation of winning.

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