Christchurch [Australia], February 8 (ANI): Australia limited-overs skipper Aaron Finch on Monday confirmed that Joshua Philippe will play in the top-three in the upcoming T20I series against New Zealand.
Philippe is going into the T20I series against New Zealand with good form behind him as for the second straight season, he starred for the Sydney Sixers in the Big Bash League (BBL), scoring 508 runs as the player of the tournament in the Sixers’ successful title defence.
“The top three will be Wade, Philippe, and myself. Maxi (Maxwell) and Stoin (Stoinis), four and five, around that area. It’s pretty simple I’d imagine. When you look at the squad list, Josh Philippe has been in great nick and it’s great to see him playing well,” cricket.com.au quoted Finch as saying.
“Matty Wade, we know how dynamic he is along with Maxi. We’re going to be flexible with that top order as well. If that means Wadey or myself or Josh, whoever bats at three, it’ll be a great opportunity,” he added.
Finch also said that Philippe’s game has gone to a new level this season. The Australian skipper said that the time spent with Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers in the Indian Premier League (IPL) has helped Philippe quite a bit.
“He’s someone who has obviously got all the shots but he’s starting to get to that point of his career – and I think a lot of that was on the back of having a couple of months of IPL where he spent a lot of time with AB (de Villers) and Virat (Kohli) talking about batting with myself (as well) – he’s taken his game to a new level because he’s just getting past that period when he’s not hitting them well,” said Finch.
“When he’s playing well it’s lights out, it’s brilliant. But just those days when he’s not feeling 100 per cent, he’s getting through that little danger period and still having a big impact on the game which I think is so important in T20,” he added.
Australia is yet to win a men’s T20 World Cup and Finch will look to win the title in this year’s tournament set to be played in India in October-November.
“We’ll use this as a way to gather a lot of info leading up to that T20 World Cup, which means there might be a little bit of shuffling. But we’ll try to stick closely to the guys playing their roles that they’re accustomed to or where we’ll see them in the future playing,” said Finch.
“The result is not the be-all and end-all. I think building up and finding information, finding different ways our team can structure up is almost more important,” he added.
Australia squad for series against New Zealand: Aaron Finch (c), Ashton Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Ben McDermott, Riley Meredith, Josh Philippe, Kane Richardson, Daniel Sams, Tanveer Sangha, D’Arcy Short, Marcus Stoinis, Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye, Matthew Wade, Adam Zampa. (ANI)