Early wickets vital in clash against India: Finch

London: The team which makes early inroads into the opposition batting will hold the advantage in Australia's World Cup match against India, skipper Aaron Finch said.

"I think it's just going to come down to early wickets. I think that's going to be a real key," Smith, who helmed the Australian turnaround in Steven Smith and David Warner’s absence over the past one year, told reporters ahead of Australia’s third world cup match.

Asked whether it will be a match up between the pace bowling departments of both sides Finch said: " I think it's not just the pace bowling. Obviously both sides have had a bit of success with their spinners in the past couple of months in particular, so what it comes down to is execution. I think on a pretty good Oval surface that's going to be another used wicket. It's going to come down to who executes."

The return of Mitchell Starc who worked up a fiery pace and got a 5 wicket haul in their last match against West indies has added to Australia’s fire power in the pace bowling department. But Finch said both teams are decked up in the bowling department.

"I think both teams have got very good world-class fast bowlers. Whether India played the two plus the all-rounder or go with an extra quick bowler, we're not sure. When you look at Bumrah, Bhuvi, Shami, Hardik, they're world-class bowlers, and then you go Starc, Cummins, Coulter-Nile, Behrendorff, Richardson. There are so many options there".

Finch pointed out that Rohit Sharma, Man of the Mantch for India in its first World Cup match against South Africa, was particularly vulnerable early in his innings as was Virat Kohli, the number one ODI batsman in the world.

"Having played in India so much recently, there are times when we probably let Virat get off to a bit of a flyer with being just a bit too straight to him or a bit too full or just letting him off the hook early, and we know once he gets into his innings he's so hard to stop.

"So you can't afford to play catch-up against great players, and Rohit is the same. When he's taking his time early in his innings, if you don't get him in that period, it builds up and builds up, and he's so destructive when he decides to really start putting the pressure," the Aussie captain said.

Finch agreed that winning the ODI series in India has boosted his team's confidence for this clash.

Australia came back from behind to beat India 3-2 in what was termed as one of its biggest ever series wins in India.

It was from this point Australian team gathered momentum ahead of the WC , winning its last 11 games before facing India.

"I think winning last three games is really important for us in India, to one, get some self belief that we can beat this Indian side in their home conditions. For that, it comes down to taking them key moments in games and making sure that no matter what situation of the game or the series or the tournament, whenever you're playing India, you have to believe that you can beat them because they're a world-class side. They've got some all-time great players, no doubt about that. So to be able to beat them in their home conditions three times in a row was really important for the confidence of the side, especially going into a game like this." Finch added that opener Shikhar Dhawan too has been highly successful against Australia.

So far though in the tournament, the southpaw from Delhi has had a low scoring start- be it in the warm up games or the match against SA where he scored just 8. Australia had a huge scare with its top order against West indies with most of its batsmen barring Steve Smith struggling against the short pitched bowling by West Indies pacers.

They were 79-5 at one stage of the game. Aussie assistant coach and former skipper Ricky Ponting expressed his unhappiness over the manner in which Australian batsmen handled short pitched bowling.

Finch said the players would learn from the the way Smith handled the short deliveries bowled at him - he kept ducking most of the time.

"We thought we were really well-prepared, but we probably just didn't stick to our game plan for long enough. I think guys individually had their own plans and own ways to play what we knew was coming, and sometimes it can be harder to play when you know it's coming. But at the end of the day, we just didn't commit to our plan for long enough."

(The story first appeared on The Week)