Toss played 'a big part', admits Aaron Finch, but so did Australia aggression

After Australia became the second team in a row to lift the men's T20 World Cup without winning a game batting first, Aaron Finch admitted that his success at the coin toss throughout the tournament was "a big factor" in their success.

Finch had suggested in the build-up to the final against New Zealand that he would not have minded losing the toss in Thursday's semi-final win over Pakistan in order to "put a big score on the board and really squeeze" the opposition, despite the fact that every night game played at Dubai across the World Cup was won by the chasing team.

But after his sixth toss win out of seven in the World Cup - and his 18th out of his last 22 in all T20Is - Finch said that the opportunity to chase had been vital, as Australia repeated West Indies' record in the 2016 edition by winning the tournament without successfully defending a score.

"It did play a big factor, to be honest," Finch said. "I tried to play it down as much as I could because I thought, 'at some point in the tournament, I'm going to lose a toss and we'll have to bat first'. But it did play a big part. You saw out there at the end there the dew factor: the slower balls weren't holding in the wicket as much. I don't know how I did it - maybe it was just fate.

"I thought the way that we bowled with the new ball in that powerplay was obviously really important. That first ten overs, to restrict New Zealand to 57. We knew they were one down but it was always going to be tough because the dew started to come down quite heavy, which we hadn't seen at all in the tournament so far.

"In T20 cricket, you need a bit of luck, don't get me wrong. Of course you need a bit of luck. We won six out of seven tosses, which goes a long way. But we've played some really good cricket. We played cricket where we put teams on the back foot because we were aggressive."

Finch also hailed David Warner's impact after his third important contribution in a row, with his innings of 53 off 38 balls in the final following scores of 49 off 30 in the semi-final against Pakistan and 89 not out off 56 against West Indies to seal Australia's qualification from the Super 12s.

While he suggested that Warner's Player-of-the-Tournament award should have gone to Adam Zampa, the leading wicket-taker since the start of the Super 12s, Finch said that Warner's batting had epitomised Australia's attacking philosophy.

"You didn't expect that?" he asked a reporter rhetorically. "I certainly did. Without a word of a lie, I promise you, I called Justin Langer a few months ago and I said 'don't worry about Davey, he'll be man of the tournament'. I thought Adam Zampa should have been man of the tournament personally, but [Warner]'s a great player, he's one of the all-time great batters and he's a fighter. He's someone who when his back's against the wall, that's when you get the very, very best of David Warner. It was a special finish to the tournament for him, the last couple of knocks.

"We are really, really committed to staying positive and aggressive against spin, and that showed tonight. I thought the way Mitch [Marsh] and Davey played against New Zealand - Shadab [Khan] got four-for in the semi-final but we kept attacking.

"We were so committed to that throughout the tournament. We were comfortable to be able to fail being aggressive because we know that that's when we play our best. I think if you go home and you don't make the semis or you don't make the final, you're kicking yourself if you're an Australian team and you play in your shell. So that was a real positive for us."