Fighting Finch allays injury fears

Aaron Finch sent a fright through the Gujarat Lions camp on Saturday night when he went down clutching his hamstring in the final stages of his match-winning performance.

Scorecard: Gujarat pip Mumbai in thriller

Finch slammed his helmet into the ground after completing a quick second run from the last ball of the 18th over of the Gujarat Lions run chase in Mumbai.

He immediately received attention from the Lions medical staff who desperately rubbed the Australian's left hamstring.

Finch carried on batting with the dud hammy, unable to sprint between the wickets as the game came down the wire against a surging Mumbai Indians outfit.

But the Victorian gutsed it out, going on to score an unbeaten 67 and hit the winning runs off the final ball to guide Gujarat to their third-straight win and maintain their perfect start as a franchise.

Finch allayed fears after the match, confirming he thought it was just cramp that struck him down.

"I was starting to cramp in my calf first and it's obviously very hot here," Finch told Sony Six after play.

"I think it was just cramp but we'll wait and see.

"I feel good, I feel like I'm batting nicely so I'd like to continue."

Lions seamer Dhawal Kulkarni, who was at the other end when Finch iced the match, described the knock as the "one of the best innings I've ever witnessed".

Finch has started the IPL season in sparkling touch, posting scores of 74, 50 and 67no with the Lions – the sixth club he's represented in the lucrative tournament.

On each occasion Finch has been named the man of the match, only the second time in the tournament's history a player has won the award three consecutive times.

"It was nice to finally get us home," Finch said.

"The last two games I've gotten us into a reasonable position to win the game but didn't go on with it. Tonight it was nice to take it right to the end.

"When you're losing wickets I try to take it upon myself to get right through and make sure we had an in-batter in towards the end."

While issue now appears to be less serious than first thought, at the time it was feared Finch had re-injured the troublesome hamstring which has caused him grief in the past.

In January he suffered a moderate grade injury to the same hamstring in the second T20 international against India at the MCG, ruling him out for five weeks.

Finch recovered to be "100 per cent" fit for Australia's World T20 campaign, which began with a three-match tour to South Africa in late February before the global competition started two weeks later in India.

It is almost a year ago to the day when Finch tore the same hamstring batting for Saturday night's opponents in the IPL.

The injury required surgery, ruling the hard-hitting opener out of for 12 weeks, but made a successful comeback in England's T20 domestic competition a month earlier than scheduled.