World Test Championship final 2021-23 (The Oval)

[PKBasu]

India have qualified for the second WTC final, having also made the first -- and lost the final to NZ (who played a short test series in England prior to the WTC final to prepare for Lord's). The second WTC final is at a more spinner-friendly arena: the Oval, where Chandra took 6/38 to spin us to victory in 1971. But this is early in the season (7th-11th June), so it may also help the swing bowlers a bit.

I would play Rohit, Rahul (wk), Pujara, Kohli, Gill, H Pandya, Jadeja, Ashwin, Umesh, Shami, Siraj.

Bharat is useless, Kishan isn't ready, Saha deserves to be picked but won't, so we may as well go with Rahul, who would have had good practice 'keeping in the IPL too. He is a poor 'keeper, but perhaps not too much worse than Bharat. I would take Sarfaraz Khan and Yashaswi Jaiswal as part of the squad. If Pandya isn't ready for test or first class cricket (i.e., bowling 10 overs a day), I would pick either Bhuvi or Thakur as the pace all rounder.

Pujara will be playing for Sussex all season this year, and Steve Smith will be his team-mate for 3 matches in May. Labuschagne will be playing for Glamorgan. And Rahane will play for Leicestershire, but will only join them once Chennai Super King's IPL fixtures are completed.

[prasen9]

Not a bad team. Is Rahul good enough to keep if the ball is swinging? If the ball is swinging, then you are essentially playing Jadeja as a pure bat, which may be okay. If we do not need five bowlers, then I'd drop one of the three #11s. Possibly Umesh or Siraj. Even otherwise, I think playing with this big a tail with three all-rounders weakens the batting. So, I think I'd rather choose Thakur. Would have preferred Bhuvi but it seems they have secretly ended his test career.

[arjun2761]

Wow, so India is the only team in history of cricket to have made successive WTC finals.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Keeping in mind English Condition and learnings from last WTC final team should be picked. Players will be in T20 mode it would be good if BCCI arranges few practice games against the County side. Will go with R Sharma, S Gill, C Pujara, V Kohli,
S Iyer/ Sarfaraz ( fitness ground), KL Rahul (WKB), R Jadeja, S Thakur, M Siraj, M Shami, U Yadav/ N Saini

Green & Hazlehood would be lethal in this condition

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Australian Squad for WTC Final :

Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Todd Murphy, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, David Warner.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Aussie squad looking strong with 4 pacers + 2 pace bowling allrounders.Mitch Marsh & Green factor looking strong then S Thakur

[prasen9]

We won't lose because of our allrounder. We won't lose because of our bowlers. I think we will lose this because our batters cannot bat in swinging conditions and we are carrying deadwood old players for a long time.

[Atithee]

Indian squad announced. Rahane makes a comeback. No Bumrah, Pandya, or Surya.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/ajin ... al-1371229

Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul, KS Bharat (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat

[Rajiv]

Indian squad announced. Rahane makes a comeback. No Bumrah, Pandya, or Surya.

Bumrah as we know has been injured for the last year and a half.
Pandya hasn't played a Test Match since 2017/ 2018, plus he is completely focused on white ball cricket
Surya is not convincing for a few chances he has got, and hasn't proved himself at the Test level.

[prasen9]

Surya does not have the pedigree at the FC level either that is needed for test success. The problem is that we have the same failed junk Rahane and Rahul back in the squad.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Expecting spin support track in Oval as Englishmen will not like Aussies doing joy in their backyard

[prasen9]

There is going to be no spin in The Oval. The English will want to stick with their white brethren. Or maybe the ICC will make the pitch?

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Rahane haven't been in news for performing in whole domestic
season, neither any expert talked about it, once he does well in IPL, he is in WTC Squad. IPL is harsh to four day cricket, Rahane could'nt have found place in WTC final which he deserved for experience & domestic performance, if he had failed in IPL. Big example is Sarfaraz Khan.KL should start keeping in IPL to provide depth to that batting line up. Aussie bowling attack will be lethal if they get any kind of swing & seam

[prasen9]

All that does not matter. Our batters are duds outside India. While the Aussies know how to bat in England. That is it. There is no hope in this one especially with the tried and tested and failed who are going. So, move on. Talking about this is a waste of time, imho. I have time to waste though it seems.

[Raju Bhai]

Suyash Sharma & Rinku Singh should feature in Playing XI in WTC final