Hello Friends,

Last decade has seen rise of so many cricketing heroes across the globe, some of whom are still enjoying their success journey. At the same time there have been quite a few who have done their job of making their country proud consistently without being talked about much. Today we are going to talk about one such silent warrior in our segment Unsung Heroes who started his career as a destructive batter in the limited overs format and turned out to be a shrewd leader bringing World cup glory to his country. Any guesses?? Let's find out.

Aaron James Finch, limited overs captain of Australian men's cricket team has been a prolific performer over the years apart from his leadership credentials. In spite of playing as a middle order batter during the early stage of his career, he established himself as a hard hitting top order batter. His heroics with the bat didn't take much time to draw the attention of national selectors as well as some of the T20 franchises across the globe. In no time he became an indispensable part of the Australia's limited overs squad. He came to the spotlight again in 2013 when he hit a brilliant 156 in a T20I against arch rivals England which remained the highest score in T20I for a while before he only broke that record with a blistering 172 against Zimbabwe. At the same time he continued to keep scoring heavily in the ODI format too despite being interrupted by frequent injuries. He was part of the World cup winning team in 2015. Being part of as many as eight IPL franchises shows his worth in the shortest format of the game. 17 centuries and 5000+ runs in less than 150 ODI games definitely puts him in the list of all time limited overs greats.

But does his heroics with the bat is the only reason he being considered as one of the Australian greats? Certainly not. Over the years he has turned out to be one of the calm and composed leaders who has survived some of the most difficult phases with this team. He got the captaincy of the limited overs side at a very crucial time when the entire Australian cricket was going through an extremely tough phase leading to suspension of their star cricketers Steve Smith and David Warner. With just about a year left to prepare for the 50 overs World cup in England he along with newly appointed head coach Justin Langer took the responsibility of regaining their lost position both on and off the field. It was definitely not easy to find the suitable replacements of Smith and Warner's calibre. At the same time to ensure that the team is able to come out of the trauma created by that entire phase was a different challenge altogether.

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