Finch happy focus is away from Australia

Australia looks set to enter a World Cup as underdogs for the first time more than 30 years and that's completely fine with skipper Aaron Finch.

Not since the 1987 World Cup in India, which an unheralded group led by Allan Border won, has Australia not been one of the competition favourites for the 50-over showpiece event.

In each World Cup since the 1987 edition, Australia have either played on home soil (1992 and 2015) or been one of the top-ranked teams. The only time Australia began a World Cup on foreign soil without the No.1 ODI ranking was the 1999 tournament in England, which they dramatically won.

Australia are currently sixth in the world, their lowest ranking in 35 years, but Finch is quite content with his side being overlooked as a World Cup threat.

"I think nobody is giving us a sniff at the moment," Finch said on Friday in Bengaluru.

"But if you look at the way that we've been tracking, the performances we've had, I think it's really important we continue that plan we're going on.

"We know that nobody has really given us a chance at all.

"It's also a nice place to be in – we can go about our business in the background."

Australia's ODI side hit rock bottom last June when they were hammered 5-0 by the world No.1 England in their conditions.

Since then, Australia have lost two ODI series 2-1 to South Africa (November) and then India (January) but were competitive and perhaps could have won both series had they taken their opportunities.

Finch says Australia's poor performances warrants the 'underdog' tag, but is happy where his side is heading with the World Cup less than three months' time.

"We haven't played our best cricket for the last couple of years in particular," he said.

"So it (underdog status) is probably justified in one regard but at the same time the progress that we've been making since the South African tour – South African ODIs, Indian ODIs – it's all been tracking in the right direction. That's all we can do at this stage.

"You can't win a World Cup three months before it, can't you?"

With so many upsets across all formats occurring in world cricket this year, Finch says the World Cup is "absolutely" wide open.

The form of the West Indies, who beat England in the Test series and have gone toe-to-toe with the top-ranked team in the ODI series, and Sri Lanka, who knocked over the Proteas to become the first Asian team to ever win a Test series in South Africa, has all competing nations daring to dream of World Cup glory.

Finch is buoyed by how his team batted against India in the Gillette ODI Series last month, compiling scores of 5-288 and 9-298 in the first two matches, scores he think will translate into larger totals on the smaller grounds in England for the World Cup.

But he dismissed the notion of needing scores of 400 to win the quadrennial event, even though five-of-the-20 400-plus scores in the 48-year history of the one-day international cricket have been scored since the last World Cup in 2015.

"We've talked about wanting to be a bit more controlled, a bit more stable through that middle order and we've seen that for the last six ODIs in particular," Finch said.

"We've seen the consistency through the middle and probably lessening a bit of risk to keep some wickets in hand, so that's been a real key.

"And if you look we were getting close to 300 in Australia. Which I think if you take that to the UK, that's like a 330-340 score.

"People always keep going on about 'you need 400'. You don't need 400. That's rare.

"If you go out every ODI and try to get 400, I think you're dreaming."