Finch seeks recipe for ODI success

Australia captain Aaron Finch, coach Justin Langer and the team's leaders are set to spend the next two months in the kitchen coming up with a recipe for ODI success.

After losing a fifth successive bilateral one-day international series – against South Africa last week – Australia are in desperate search for a winning method with just 13 matches left until their World Cup defence starts in England next June.

Following England's ascension to the top of the ODI team rankings it's been suggested that the Australians should emulate their oldest rivals and attack all guns blazing from ball one like Eoin Morgan's men.

Similarly, India's sustained excellence in the 50-over format by conserving wickets for a late-innings blitz could be seen as the perfect blueprint to construct a playing style.

But Finch says plagiarism is not the way forward. Instead, a pinch of England and dash of India might be what's needed for his side to start tasting that sweet success again.

"It's about finding our balance and finding what works best for us as a one-day team," Finch told reporters after Australia's 40-run series-surrendering loss on Hobart on Sunday.

"You look at the way India play, they're generally quite conservative in that first 10 and then really solid through that middle 30 overs where they rotate the strike, they lose minimal wickets and then load up at the back end.

"I don't think it's all about going head-on and smacking it all out attack the way that England play, but I think if you can mix and match and find what best fits your batting seven.

"I think it'd be naïve and ignorant to think every team can play like that or every team can play like India.

"There's two totally different ways to go about it but they've both been ultra-successful in the last couple of years."

Australia opted for a more English approach on Sunday by promoting T20 dynamo Chris Lynn from No.4 to open the innings, a move made with the intention of fighting fire with fire against the Proteas' fearsome pace attack.

The move backfired when Lynn was out for a golden duck, but Finch said in hindsight he would make the same decision and hinted the Queenslander is likely to stay at the top of the order.

The power option is one Australia have tried in recent times with Finch, Lynn, Marcus Stoinis and Glenn Maxwell in the top order, and the style of play has been dictated by the personnel.

"I think that if you look at our line-up on paper at the moment you'd say that it's an attacking side and it's a fairly one-dimensional side in terms of attack versus workers of the ball and your traditional batsmen," said Finch, who has been part of Australia's recent top-order collapses in ODI cricket.

"Not to disrespect any of the players by any stretch of the imagination but it's probably that way.

"And we haven't got it right for a while and that does expose you in the middle-order at times when you come up on some different wickets or a really good attack who get on top of you early."

That could be bigger issue for the Australians, one Finch eluded to speaking to the press.

It's not just the recipe his side is after, it's finding the right ingredients too.

Like the chicken and the egg, it's hard to know which comes first. Do the selectors decide on a style then pick a side or do they choose the players first then land on a game plan based on the collective's abilities?

It is a question Finch and the senior figures in the national team are aiming to answer as they cook up a plan to win the World Cup.

"We have to either adapt our game plan a little bit around the way the side is structured at best, or we slightly change our personnel to fit a style we think we can win," he said.

"That's something that will come out over the next couple of months when we sit down and dig into it and find a way to get back on top of the world.

"We've got a bit over two months even until the next one-day games against India so that will be a really good opportunity to sit down and reassess and really start mapping out that process of how I think, JL thinks and the leaders think that we can be the most successful in this format."

Throwing a wrinkle into the recipe is the likely return of banned batsmen Steve Smith and David Warner in March after all the one-day matches have been played.

How they fit in the new style remains to be seen, but Finch would hope they are the icing on the cake and the cherry on top.

India Tour of Australia 2018-19

Gillette ODI Series v India

First ODI: January 12, SCG (D/N)

Second ODI: January 15, Adelaide Oval (D/N)

Third ODI: January 18, MCG (D/N)