File photo of Matthew Wade.
Australia wrapped up the ODI series in style with clinical performnaces in two wins on the trot against India in Sydney and will now be feeling relaxed for the dead rubber and final ODI in Canberra on Wednesday.
However, gaining momentum ahead of the maequee Border-Gavaskar series, Aussies would be reluctant to give any freebies to India and allow them to bounce back.
To add to their worries, the hosts will also be without the services of David Warner and Pat Cummins. While 34-year-old Warner is out with adductor injury, 27-year-old Cummins has been rested for the four-match Test series by Cricket Australia.
It has brought in D'Arcy Short as Warner's replacement in the squad while no one was called-up for Cummins.
With Short coming in, skipper Aaron Finch will have couple of options as Marnus Labuschagne also had said he can bat up the order if team wants him to.
When asked at the pre-match conference on the eve of the match, Finch kept his cards close to the chest saying he is happy at the number of options they have.
"We haven't picked a team yet, but we've got a few options," Finch was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au during the conference.
"Whether we go Wadey in the side or Marnus comes up and opens the batting, Alex Carey has done a lot of it in the past."
However, the Oz captain dropped a hint that team's middle order has performed well and he might not be tinkering with it.
"But the middle-order has been functioning really well over the last little while. That's the beauty of being two-nil up in the series, you can look to experiment if you want to do that or you can look to play the safe option," Finch said.
Despite the abundance of opening partner options at Finch's disposal, the 34-year-old will certainly miss Warner, with whom he had 100-plus partnership in the past two games. And Finch had no qualms in accepting that his team will be 'slightly' weakened in the southpaw's absence.
"It would be great to have him available, no doubt," said Finch."He's an all-time great in one-day and T20 cricket, I don’t think there's many better players to have played the game."
"So any team he's not a part of is going to be slightly weaker but we've got guys that can step and really contribute heavily in that role."
