Aakash Chopra, a former cricketer-turned-broadcaster, believes that the presence of veteran opener David Warner in Australia’s playing XI could be a weakness for them in the World Test Championship final.
The stage is set for the two World Test Championship finalists to face off at The Oval in an attempt to win cricket’s most prestigious title. The match between the Pat Cummins-led team and the Rohit Sharma-led India will begin on June 7 and continue until June 11. If a significant quantity of time is lost during the first five days without a result, the reserve day (12 June) will be utilised.
Warner’s performance during Australia’s recent Border-Gavaskar Trophy tour of India was fairly average. Warner had a miserable Test performance, scoring only 26 runs across three innings before being ruled out of the series due to an elbow injury.
Aakash Chopra previewed the WTC final at The Oval on his YouTube channel and mentioned Warner’s poor performance in Tests on English soil.
“How will the opposing team perform? I see David Warner as marginally 50/50 in that regard. His performance in England is also very poor. Following Usman Khawaja are Steven Smith, Travis Head, and Marnus Labuschagne.
Chopra also acknowledged that Australia possesses a solid batting order and a formidable bowling attack.
Cameron Green will follow Alex Carey after that, or vice versa. Consequently, there will be a great deal of variety in batting. Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc bat well in these conditions, and Scott Boland is in good form.
According to captain Pat Cummins, Australia will field Scott Boland in the championship game instead of Michael Neser. Nathan Lyon will presumably handle the spin department for the inaugural finalists.