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| - Fact Check: Is Australian skipper Aaron Finch retiring from all cricket formats?
The India Today Anti Fake News War Room found the viral claim to be a hoax. Finch made no announcement of his retirement.
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India Today Fact Check
This hoax went viral after Australia’s recent ODI series defeat in Pakistan. Finch, however, said he was confident about turning that around in the following series against Sri Lanka. Finch will play for Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL. In 2020, he spoke about retiring at the end of the 2023 ODI World Cup.
Since Australia’s defeat against Pakistan in the recent ODI series, a social media post has gone viral with the claim that Australian skipper Aaron Finch has retired from cricket altogether.
Several Facebook and Twitter users shared this post with captions like, “Aaron Finch has decided to retire from all forms of cricket. He has arranged for a press conference tomorrow.”
The India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found the viral claim to be a hoax. Finch made no announcement of his retirement.
AFWA probe
On April 3, after Australia’s defeat against Pakistan in the ODI series, Finch noted that he was going through a bad patch in his batting form. According to ESPNcricinfo, however, Finch said he was confident that he would turn this around in the following series.
He said, “I still feel as though all my training has been really positive, it's just been the first couple of balls, getting my pad in the way. It's been a thing throughout my career and it would be nice if it didn't happen — but I'm still very confident I can turn it round in the next series against Sri Lanka.”
Australia will play limited-overs games against Sri Lanka in June this year.
As per reports, Australia’s interim coach Andrew McDonald expressed no doubt that Finch would lead Australia is the T20 World Cup later this year.
“From my end, there's no conversation around the fact that he won't be there,” McDonald said. “His form can ebb and flow as most players can and his ability to work through these patches has been significant in his career. We had the same conversation about David Warner leading into the T20 World Cup last time.”
Finch also joined the Kolkata Knight Riders team in the Indian Premier League as a replacement for Alex Hales.
AFWA spoke to Vikrant Gupta, Senior Executive Editor at India Today Sports, who said the viral claim about Finch’s retirement was “speculation”. Gupta said, “He was the captain of the Australian team that had won the T20 World Cup last time, so as a captain he must be willing to defend the title in his backyard because the T20 World Cup will be played in Australia this year.”
As per the official website of Cricket Australia, in 2020, during the Covid-19 lockdown, Finch expressed his desire to play for three more years, and retire at the end of the 2023 ODI World Cup in India.
Finch, however, conceded in 2020 that his dream of playing more Test cricket may be unrealistic even though he wanted to have “one really good crack” at getting back into the Test team before he retired.
It is thus clear that the news of Finch’s immediate retirement is untrue.
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