Team India will return to action on June 7 when they face Australia in the World Test Championship final. The Indian team will be looking for its first title in the tournament, after losing to New Zealand in the final of the 2021 edition. The Indian squad has arrived in England to prepare for the title match, and Rohit Sharma’s men will be looking to break a 10-year drought for an ICC trophy next week.
While almost all major India stars have been preoccupied with the Indian Premier League season over the past two months, Cheteshwar Pujara has been with County side Sussex, where he has represented – and captained – the side in select matches. Sunil Gavaskar, a former India batter, believes Pujara’s experience will be crucial to the team.
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“The fact that he is been around will mean that he will have also seen how the pitch has been behaving at The Oval.
“He might not have played at The Oval, he might be in Sussex not too far away from London but he will have kept an eye on what is happening and his inputs will be invaluable as far as the batting unit is concerned or even as far as the captaincy is concerned,” Gavaskar told Star Sports.
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“He’ll have the captains here in terms of the Oval pitch, and don’t forget he’s also been captaining the team, so he’ll have worked out quite a few strategies seeing as Steve Smith, the Australian, is his teammate at the moment.”
Gavaskar also stated that the Indian batters, fresh off the IPL, will need to adjust their bat speed ahead of the WTC final, and that they should play as late as possible.
“I believe they will look at their bat speed.” Coming from T20 cricket, where bat speeds are very fast, to Test cricket, where bat speeds must be much more controlled, that is something they will need to do,” he said.