Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has shared that Team India’s fate in the race to qualify for the World Test Championship (WTC) final is in their hands. He also stated that they need to win against Bangladesh to be in the final as well. However, India will play against the Tigers in a two-match series, with the first Test taking place in Chattogram on Wednesday, December 14 as well. However, their final series of the ongoing cycle will be a four-match home series against Australia as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra said: “It is a very simple thing. There are two matches, if India win both matches, they will remain in the race for the WTC final. If you stumble here, the road ahead will become very difficult. There are a lot of permutations and combinations left but your fate is in your hands. South Africa, who are currently No. 2, have to play against Australia. Then Australia have to play against us, those will be four Test matches at home. England’s last Test against Pakistan is left. England have won two out of two, what will happen if they win the third as well?”
“Go with five proper bowlers because you will have to call the shots on the Chattogram pitch” – Aakash Chopra
However, England are out of the race to qualify for the WTC final as they have only 44.44% points and they have just one Test left to play against Pakistan. Meanwhile, India, Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka are competing for the two available spots now as well. On the other hand, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel are expected to feature in India’s playing XI whereas either Kuldeep Yadav or Shardul Thakur will get to plat, depending on the pitch conditions.
“Go with five proper bowlers because you will have to call the shots on the Chattogram pitch. The better team, that has to win matches, which England showed by doing, has to play aggressively. There are two ways of playing aggressively. Either play like England and score seven runs per over, so that you have so many overs remaining that it works out even if your bowling is slightly weak. The other way is that you score runs at 3.25 to 3.5 runs per over and you should be happy if I score 280-300 runs in a day but I have enough bowling to dismiss a team twice in two-and-a-half days,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
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