WTC 2023 Final: India's Legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has pointed that batter Cheteshwar Pujara will be crucial to provide invaluable inputs to the Indian team for the World Test Championship Final against Australia. India will lock horns against Australia in their second Test championship final at The Oval from June 7 onwards. The Men in Blue look to clinch their first Test mace after finishing as runners-up in the 2021 edition.
Notably, Sunil Gavaskar is of the view that Cheteshwar Pujara's inputs will be invaluable to the Indian team in both batting as well as in the captaincy. Among the Indian squad players for the Championship, only Pujara was in England, playing county cricket and getting some Test experience under his belt. He was also the captain of the Sussex team that featured Australia's modern great Steve Smith.
"The fact that he is been around (in England) 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, and 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.
He also stated that India's modern wall in Test cricket might be having strategies chalked out for Smith. "He will have the captains here as far as the Oval pitch is concerned and don't forget he has also been captaining the team, so he definitely will have worked out quite a few strategies seeing that Steve Smith, the Australian is his teammate at the moment," Gavaskar added.
The 73-year-old Gavaskar also stated that the Indian batter will have to make adjustments to their batting after playing a high-octane T20 cricket. "I think they are going to look at their bat speed. Coming from T20 where the bat speed is very fast to Test cricket where the bat speeds got to be a lot more control, that is something they'll need to do," he said.
"They'll need to play in England as late as possible to allow for the swing to do its bit, not to reach out for the ball which often a lot of people make the mistake having played on good pitches," the 1983 World Cup winner added. Gavaskar also had advice for the bowling group and stated that they should bowl a bit fuller with the new ball and get movement in the air.
