Aaron Finch believes he might get more emotional in his BBL and Melbourne Renegades farewell than he did when he retired from international cricket for Australia, as he prepares to play his last professional match in the Melbourne derby on Saturday night.
Finch has announced his retirement from professional cricket despite having a year to run on his Renegades contract. He has only played four games for Renegades this season and none since he injured his back on December 23.
He has been available to play after recovering from that injury but has not been selected. However, with Renegades out of the finals picture, he has been granted a farewell game against Melbourne Stars at Marvel Stadium on Saturday with a crowd of more than 30,000 expected to turn out to say goodbye to one of the iconic figures of the BBL.
Finch will retire the competition's second leading run-scorer behind Chris Lynn and Renegades' games record-holder having played in each of the 13 seasons of the BBL for the one club. He also captained the side to their lone BBL title in 2018-19. He is also the seventh-highest run-scorer in all T20 cricket.
Finch revealed he was not overly emotional in his last game of ODI cricket in 2022. He did not have a T20I farewell as he announced his retirement months after his final game, but he said his BBL farewell will feel different.
"I haven't got emotional around any of my retirements, which is quite strange," Finch said on Friday. "But maybe tomorrow I will. This has been a huge part of mine and my family's life for the last 13 years and have put as much time and effort into it as I can and, yeah, it'll be sad, no doubt.
"He's been a mainstay of the Renegades for 13 years now and his contribution, we'll always be grateful for players like him in particular. It's exciting to kind of have this opportunity to say goodbye to him" Adam Zampa on Aaron Finch
"But it's time to move on and the next generation of players coming through are seriously good. So it's in good hands."
Finch said it had been difficult not being selected for most of the season despite being fit and available for the majority of it. He admitted that the transition from international cricket to franchise cricket only had been a challenge.
"When you're no longer captain, I guess that's taken out of your hands a bit as well because you're not in selection," he said. "It's been difficult no doubt. It's been something that I've been lucky with throughout my career actually that it hasn't happened a huge amount of times. But to finish up here at Marvel will be really special as well.
"From a playing point of view, once you go from hitting balls day in day out, hundreds of balls, 1000s of balls a week to then it, not becomes your second priority, but you just don't have the time or the resources to hit as many balls as you would want.
"Then it takes a bit more catching up to do so. That's probably been the most difficult part to keep playing in franchises, but to not be in a system where you have access to a lot of resources."
Finch cited the 2018-19 title as his greatest achievement in the BBL but he added that he had loved playing home games at Marvel Stadium under the roof, despite it not being the most popular venue amongst players within the BBL.
"The title win was unbelievable," Finch said. "Especially against the Stars in a game where they well and truly had one hand, almost two hands on the trophy, and to drag it back and win that game was really special.
"I think just overall just getting to play here. It's such an unusual venue for cricket and we're the only team that does play cricket here. There's no other games, no international games or anything that happens so it's really cool."
Finch's Renegades and Australia team-mate Adam Zampa said players should be grateful for Finch's contribution to the competition.
"He's one of those inaugural players from the first year that kind of the competition was built around," Zampa said. "I don't think the BBL would have the position it does without players like Finchy. He's been a mainstay of the Renegades for 13 years now and his contribution, we'll always be grateful for players like him in particular. It's exciting to kind of have this opportunity to say goodbye to him."
Stars allrounder Marcus Stoinis was also full of praise for Finch's contribution to his own career having played almost all of his limited-overs cricket for Australia under Finch's leadership, including the 2021 T20 World Cup triumph in the UAE.
"He's been great for the BBL, been great for the Renegades, Victorian cricket and Australian cricket," Stoinis said. "For us, we've got a different lens in that he helped nurture us through our early stages of playing for Australia. He captained us pretty much the whole time. He was the one that, in those first games where we weren't feeling comfortable within ourselves, he threw us the ball, kept us going, educated us.
"As much as he's in the opposition I'm glad that it's working out that I get to play in the game that is his farewell because he deserves a farewell. I do hope we win. But he deserves to have a great night."
Finch is likely to step into the commentary box full-time after Saturday night's farewell but he is excited about the future of the BBL after its resurgence this season.
"I think the fact that it's back to 10 games now is a really good thing," Finch said. "That just puts an emphasis on every single game and with more Test players playing [next year], the amount of Australian cricketers playing, that are the best in the world, is better for the competition and I think in turn that will then attract more internationals, better internationals, because the whole standard of the competition goes up.
"So that's something to be really excited about. Over the last 13 years, the young players come in and have a bigger impact straightaway than probably what they used to.
"It's going to go from strength to strength again. I think it's a really exciting time for BBL."