Sydney/IBNS: Former Australian skipper Aaron Finch, under whose captaincy the national side won their first T20 World Cup in 2021, has announced his retirement from international cricket.
He had retired from ODI in September.
In his career, Finch had played five Tests, 146 one-day internationals and 103 T20s for Australia.
Finch is the only Australia men’s player to date to play more than 100 T20 Internationals (103), and in addition to being its most-capped skipper (76 matches) for the side.
The 36-year-old also holds the record for the highest T20I score among all nations – an extraordinary 172 from 76 balls faced against Zimbabwe at Harare in 2018 – and has scored more runs (3120) than any other Australia batter, ahead of his long-time opening partner David Warner (2894), Cricket Australia reported.
“I always wanted to get through the Big Bash and re-assess after that, and I found my body was sore after a BBL game and took a couple of days to recover,” Finch told cricket.com.au prior to making today’s retirement announcement.
“He (McDonald) said give yourself time to make a decision that’s not an emotional call, but one that’s right for you and your family,” he said.
“I feel as though that’s what I’ve done,” Finch said.
“I thought long and hard about it, but with a big break between games it gives everyone involved time to plan and prepare for the next T20 World Cup in 2024 (in the West Indies and USA) because I can’t see myself getting there at all,” he said.
“It would be doing the position and the team a disservice to play on for purely selfish reasons,” he said.
