Former India batter Wasim Jaffer feels that the openers will play a massive role in deciding the World Test Championship Final. India will take on Australia in the summit clash at The Oval, starting on 7 June. Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill are expected to open the innings for the Indian team against a pace attack of Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins.
Speaking to Indian Express, Jaffer said that England was the most challenging place to bat in because of the five days movement.
“Openers will have to play a massive role. England is the most challenging place to bat because of the sideways movement. Conditions change so drastically because of the weather. It changes quickly. The duke’s ball also poses a lot of problems. As the ball gets old, it will keep swinging and also starts to reverse. With Starc and Cummins, running at 145 kph, it is going to be challenging,” says Jaffer.
Speaking about the Australian bowling unit, Jaffer said that Pat Cummins is the bowler that India should be wary of.
“Cummins will be a different beast with the duke’s balls. If the conditions will be slightly in favour of them, then they will make life miserable for the Indian openers,” Jaffer said in the interview.
India players will be coming off 2 months of rigorous white-ball cricket in the Indian Premier League 2023. Only Cheteshwar Pujara in the Indian line-up has been played competitive red ball cricket in the last two months ahead of the WTC Final. Jaffer was of the opinion that while it might be a tough job to switch from white ball to red ball, modern players are used to making such a rapid change in less time.
“Things are looking good but the only concern is that they have played so much T20 cricket in the past two months and for them to adjust quickly, that is going to be a challenge without having any match practice only four or five days of preparation. I am sure nowadays cricketers have learnt to make that switch very quickly,” Jaffer concluded on the matter.
