Matthew Wade is expected to take over the captaincy of Australia in the ODI series against West Indies. The reason behind the change is the injury of first-choice captain Aaron Finch. Finch suffered a knee injury in the 5th and final T20I game against West Indies on Friday.
Australia also lost the match to the hosts after conceding a huge target to chase in 20 overs. Australia was stopped by West Indies at 183 while chasing the target of 199 in 20 overs. West Indies won the series in dominating manner defeating Australia 4-1 in five-match series. E. Lewis was on the fire as he scored 79 runs off just 34 deliveries in the final T20I encounter. Also, Captain Pooran scored quick 31 runs to help the team score 199 runs.
Captain Finch was seen struggling after twisting his knee in the 5th T20I game. Finch was unable to run quickly between the wickets and was unable to contribute important runs in the chase while running between the wickets.While talking about Finch’s absence from the ODI series,Wade stated :
“It’s a bit of a moving thing, the vice-captaincy. Going forward in the one-dayers I have no idea what will happen there. I am probably not expecting to play, especially if Finchy plays, but if he doesn’t there might be an opportunity for me to play,” cricket.com.au quoted Wade as saying.
“I came over here thinking I would play the T20s and I wouldn’t play the ODIs. I think some of the younger guys would get some opportunities to play them which is fair enough, I’ve been around a long time now. “But if Finchy doesn’t come up there might be an opportunity to play, so we’ll wait and see,” he added.
We’ve got plenty of different leaders here : Matthew Wade
Meanwhile, wicket-keeper Matthew Wade captained Australia last summer in one T20I game in absence of Aaron Finch. Notably, Wade hasn’t been part of the ODI team for a long time now. Matthew Wade played his last ODI game against India on 1st October 2017.
“I love to captain whenever I get an opportunity. I captained in the T20s (against India last summer), and we’ve got plenty of different leaders here,” said Wade.
“Moises is a really good leader, Adam Zampa is getting better and better, ‘Starcy’ and ‘Hoff’ (Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood) go about their thing.
Wade concluded by stating leadership is pretty easy in presence of experienced guys in the team.
“Captaining is pretty easy at this level with those experienced guys around so if I got the opportunity I’d jump at it,” he added.
