Aaron Finch: Australia’s T20 captain retires from international cricket

Australia’s Twenty20 captain, Aaron Finch, said it was the right time to move on after calling time on his 12-year international career.

The 36-year-old on Tuesday announced his retirement from the shortest form of the game at the international level.

“The time is right to let the T20 team enter a new phase, to give them enough time and space to allow a new captain to take over and move in a new direction,” Finch said.

“Realising that I won’t be playing on until the next T20 World Cup in 2024, now is the right moment step down and give the team time to plan and build towards that event.”

He retired from one-day international cricket in September, but remained captain of the T20 side for last year’s unsuccessful World Cup defence on home soil.

He brings down the curtain on his international career having amassed more than 8,500 runs across all three forms of the game, including five Test matches and 146 ODIs. He made his T20I debut in 2011 and went on to play 103 matches for Australia, leading the team as captain to World Cup success in 2021.

He hangs up his gloves as one of the 20-over format’s most successful players; he twice held the record for the highest T20 international score – he made 156 against England in 2013 before beating his own record with a knock of 172 against Zimbabwe five years later – and holds two of the three highest scores in T20 international cricket.

Finch starred in the Big Bash League once again this season, scoring 428 runs for the Melbourne Renegades and being selected in the team of the tournament.

Cricket Australia CEO Nick Hockley paid tribute to Finch, calling the two-time World Cup winner a “master tactician and a natural born leader”.

“He has made an absolutely enormous contribution to Australian men’s cricket,” Hockley said.

CA chair Lachlan Henderson said Finch would always have a special place in Australian cricket history as one of only four men’s players to captain the team to a World Cup victory.

“Playing at the highest level for over a decade requires incredible determination and dedication, so we thank Aaron for his enormous contribution and wish him all the best in the next phase of his career,” Henderson said.

His departure leaves CA looking for a new captain, although the governing body has time to conduct a search with their next T20 international not scheduled until September.