The second edition of the World Test Championship (WTC) has reached its climax with India and Australia facing each other in the final. The summit clash is set to commence on June 7 at the Oval in London and the former cricketers are now busy predicting the winner of the competition. Several former cricketers have made their prediction already and the latest to add to the list are AB de Villiers and Nasser Hussain.
De Villiers has conceded that it is tough to pick a winner of the clash between India and Australia. However, he reckons that team India will be slight favourites given the fact that they defeated a strong England team last time they played at the Oval, venue for the WTC Final.
"Very difficult to say who are the favorites. Both teams have not been playing a lot of Test cricket of late but what I can say is that India in their last Test match at the Oval have got a win against this very strong England team. They will be taking a bit of confidence from that. I think India will come out on top on day five of the Test match. I think it might go all the way. It's a good wicket to bat on but I think the Indian spinners will come into play in the latter stages of the Test match," De Villiers said while speaking to JioCinema.
Meanwhile, former England cricketer Nasser Hussain has also backed India to win the WTC Final against Australia. He feels that the conditions in Oval will help the Rohit Sharma-led side to field two spinners and also pick Shardul Thakur. "I think India, as they showed in Australia, can win in any conditions. “It helps with the balance of their side if the weather is good and if the sun shines at The Oval, that they can go with their formula of two spinners, two seamers, and have (Shardul) Thakur as your third seamer.
"If you look back at the last World Test Championship, I think India read the conditions wrong. The lights were on all five days, it was grey, it was miserable, it was cold. New Zealand didn't play a front-line spinner. India played two, and I think seam dominated, swing dominated. India have played some good cricket at The Oval. They beat England there last time in a really good game. I think it's a pretty fair venue," Hussain said while speaking to ICC.