ICC Champions Trophy 2017: Chris Lynn hopes to repay selectors with impressive showing

What’s the story?

Australian all-rounder Chris Lynn is hoping to stay true to his billing as a big-hitting batsman at the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy event in England and make the most of what he termed as a surprise call-up after the national selectors named him in the 15-man squad despite not playing much domestic cricket due to his unfortunate tryst with injuries.

The 27-year-old in fact conceded that he once feared about his participation in the eight-team event after an awkward fall during an IPL match resulted in a shoulder injury. Thankfully from an Australian perspective, the injury was not as bad as initially feared and with an intensive rehabilitation session, Lynn was back playing in the latter stages of the IPL and the all-rounder is all set to go all gun blazing in England.

"It was a long couple of weeks in India, I really smacked the rehab, so the body's feeling good and I'm ready to hit the ground running,” Lynn said. “The best decision I made was staying over there after the injury – being around the boys and giving myself the best opportunity to get to the Champions Trophy. That's paid off.

"I haven't played Matador Cup for about four years now, so thank you to the selectors for getting me (to the Champions Trophy). Getting back out there and whacking the ball over the fence is what I love doing, so I'm going to try and do that hopefully for Australia over the next three weeks," he added.

In case you didn’t know...

Lynn, the Player of the Tournament in the last two editions of the Big Bash League, started off the 2017 IPL with a bang, scoring an undefeated 93 to help Kolkata Knight Riders chase down a target of184 set by Gujarat Lions with more than five overs to spare.

He played a little cameo against eventual champions Mumbai Indians in the next fixture before the unfortunate injury that came just a day before his 27^th birthday.

After initially being ruled out for the remainder of the IPL season, Lynn made a successful comeback finishing with 295 runs from just 7 innings at an average of 49.16 and with a strike rate of 180.98 – the highest for any batsman in the 2017 IPL with minimum 150 runs to their name.

Extra Cover: Chris Lynn's fairy tale season that was not to be

The heart of the matter

Lynn is confident that he can carry forward the momentum from the IPL into the Champions Trophy and despite an uncharacteristic slow knock against Sri Lanka in the warm-up fixture recently, the Australian made it clear that he would approach the 50-over game in the same aggressive manner that he displays in T20 cricket.

Frequent injury layoffs have meant that Lynn has only played 10 domestic matches in the 50-over format over the past four years and only made his ODI debut for Australia earlier this year in the series against Pakistan.

Expressing his gratitude to the national selectors for backing his potential despite an obvious lack of experience in the format, Lynn said that he is fully prepared to hit the ground running once the tournament kicks off. He had previously expressed his desire to open the innings along with David Warner for Australia in the Champions Trophy but only came in at the No. 3 spot against Sri Lanka while the match against Pakistan was washed out.

What’s next?

Australia have been grouped alongside pre-tournament favourites and hosts England, New Zealand and Bangladesh and will start their campaign against Kane Williamson’s side on June 2 at Edgbaston. Their second group fixture will be day-night affair against Bangladesh at the Oval before they return to Edgbaston for their final group game against Eoin Morgan’s side.

Extra Cover: ICC Champions Trophy 2017 Schedule: Full timetable with venue ground details, PDF download

Author’s take

With only a solitary ODI to his name thus far, the Australian selectors have taken a huge gamble by selecting Lynn in the 15-main squad for the Champions Trophy. His T20 credentials may be well and truly established but the 50-over is an altogether different ball game and it will be interesting to see where skipper Steven Smith decides to put him in the batting order.