DUBAI: Captain Aaron Finch warned Australia will embark on their World Cup defence next month with confidence riding high after completing the One-day International sweep against Pakistan on Sunday hot on the heels of a series victory in India.

Written off after a torrid 15 months which saw Australia win just three of 18 One-day Internationals, Finch led the 2015 World Cup winners from 2-0 down last month to beat Virat Kohli’s formidable side 3-2, Australia’s first series win in India since 2009.

They then romped to a 5-0 rout of a depleted Pakistan who rested six top players for the series played in the United Arab Emirates, including regular captain Sarfraz Ahmed and top batsman Babar Azam, ahead of the World Cup which begins on May 30.

“We’ll go to the World Cup with a lot of confidence now, even after a lot of people wrote us off,” said Finch who was declared man-of-the-series for his imposing tally of 451 runs, which included two hundreds and two fifties.

“If you think back to six months ago, a lot of people were slamming us, a lot of people were writing us off for not just one-day cricket but all forms of cricket,” Finch added. “When you’re building towards something and you’ve changed a bit of your strategy and game plan, I think it can take a little bit of time to develop.

“It took a bit of time for guys maybe to fully buy into it and believe that it was the right way to play one-day cricket and the right strategy to go with.

“Potentially we had a real focus coming here and that was our last hit-out before the World Cup so we wanted to go into that tournament with a lot of momentum,” he said.

Winners of 2015 World Cup at home, Australia had endured a miserable time in limited-overs cricket since last year’s ball-tampering controversy in South Africa.

The scandal resulted in former captain and vice-captain Steve Smith and David Warner being banned for a year, suspensions that expired only last week, and Australia were then routed 5-0 in England and dropped home series 2-1 to both South Africa and India.

Finch was dismissed for under 50 just once against Pakistan and fell only 27 runs short of George Bailey’s Australian record of 478 for the most runs scored in a bilateral series.

“It was probably my most consistent [series] as a batter,” said Finch. “I think if you look back through my career, there’s been times when I’ve got a couple of hundreds an there will be some really low scores in there as well.

“It was nice to get a good start each game and still kicking myself at a couple of chances, [and innings] where I could have gone on and got some really big match-winning scores.”

Finch’s opening partnership with Usman Khawaja has been a huge success, with the latter third on the runs list with 272 at an average of 54.40 against Pakistan after also dominating with the bat against Virat Kohli’s side in a man-of-the-series performance.

Finch admitted the potential return of Warner and Smith would mean some difficult choices when the World Cup squad is named later this month.

“There will be some unlucky guys,” said Finch of squad. “Everyone who has an opportunity has played some great cricket. At the end of the day there will be some tough calls, but its exciting for Australia at the same time.”

Pakistan’s head coach Mickey Arthur, who has also coached South Africa and Australia, said the defending champions were in good shape after securing a fourth whitewash against Pakistan in a bilateral series.

“All the final jigsaw pieces are coming together nicely. Australia look a very, very good side. They will be a threat at the World Cup,” said Arthur.

Arthur defended leaving out key players Fakhar Zaman, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Babar and Sarfraz, while Mohammad Hafeez was missing injured.

“All we can do is prepare as best we can,” he said. “We got on the road in September last year for the Asia Cup before playing Australia and New Zealand and we went to South Africa and then had the Pakistan Super League so we had to rest those guys.”

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2019