Australia will monitor the knee injury of skipper Aaron Finch leading up to the ODI series against West Indies, ESPNcricinfo reported. Finch has twisted his knee in the fifth and final T20 of the series and hence his participation in the ODI series is doubtful.
Finch has had a recurrent knee injury problem and as per the ESPNcricinfo report he had complained of a mild injury in the early part of the tour. However, he persisted in playing on for the entire series.
In case Finch gets ruled out of the ODI series, Australia don’t have a designated vice-captain on the ongoing Caribbean tour as the vice-captain in all formats, Pat Cummins has not come on the tour.
One most prominent member of the squad who can be tipped to lead the side could be Matthew Wade, who had led the side before in absence of Finch against India.
Now, recalling his captaincy memory from the last summer, Wade has said that captaining the Australian international side has not been difficult ask for him with the luxury of experienced players around him.
He has also announced his eagerness to lead the side by saying that he would “love” to captain the side albeit conceding that it would be a massive turnaround in fortunes as he was not expecting to play the ODIs in the first place.
"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,” Wade told cricket.com.au.
"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."
"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. 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. Captaining is pretty easy at this level with those experienced guys around so if I got the opportunity I'd jump at it."
Matthew Wade made his ODI debut way back in 2012 and has played 94 ODIs with a mediocre average of 25.75 and a solitary hundred.
The ODI series between West Indies and Australia will commence on July 21 in Barbados.