Former Australia National Cricket Team captain Aaron Finch has said that he found captaining in the IPL harder than leading his country at the international level.
Aaron Finch also revealed how he felt about constantly switching teams in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and not getting a permanent franchise that he could’ve called his home.
IPL was probably the hardest – Aaron Finch
Finch played for nine teams – Mumbai Indians, Kolkata Knight Riders, Gujarat Lions, Kings XI Punjab, Delhi Daredevils, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Rajasthan Royals, and Pune Warriors – in his long Indian Premier League (IPL) career.
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He started his career in the Indian Premier League (IPL) with Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the 2009/10 season and finished with a stint with the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in 2022.
Overall, he played 92 matches in the marquee Indian T20 League and scored 2091 runs at an average of 25.19 and a strike rate of 128.20.
Aaron Finch is regarded as one of the best T20 players of all time, and he also led Australia to the T20 World Cup 2021 triumph and Melbourne Renegades to the BBL title in the 2018-19 season. He captained a lot of teams across different leagues in his career, but found the captaincy stint with Pune Warriors in IPL the toughest.
“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.
“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,” Finch told The Cricket Monthly.
I made my IPL debut for Rajasthan Royals – Aaron Finch
Aaron Finch further talked about his maiden IPL stint with Rajasthan Royals (RR), where he signed a three-year contract only to be forced into the auction due to changes in rules.
“I made my IPL debut for Rajasthan Royals. I played one match under Warnie (Shane Warne) as a replacement player, the last game of the year. It’s funny how your career can take different turns. At the end of that year, I’d signed a three-year deal with Rajasthan.
“I was an uncapped player, and that was all above board at the time. We went to the Champions League, and I had already got my three-year deal with Rajasthan locked away. Everyone else was playing for an IPL deal, really, but it didn’t bother me how I went, and I performed well. And then, just before the auction, they decided that everybody was in the auction. Now teams couldn’t sign uncapped players (on longer contracts),” Finch said.
Either I was a good enough player to keep getting picked – Aaron Finch
While talking about representing 9 different teams, Aaron Finch dropped a brutally honest comment. He said that either he was a good enough player to be picked by different teams or not quite good enough to be retained. He said:
“That’s a good way to look at it. Either I was a good enough player to keep getting picked, or I just wasn’t quite good enough to be that one- or two-franchise type player. Of course, I’d have loved to stay at one franchise the whole time.”
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