The Ageas Bowl will be the venue where the two best Test sides in the world face each other for the biggest crown in Test cricket. The pitch is expected to assist the pacers and this given rise to the debate that Indian batsmen could be troubled by Tim Southee and Trent Boult among others.
The preparations of the WTC Final are in full swing as both teams gear up for the mouth-watering clash. Team India and New Zealand will battle it out in Southampton to become the first-ever World Test Championship winners.
Former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan opines that the Indian batsman might struggle against the New Zealand pacers. He believes that the openers will have to cautious as they might face trouble facing the new ball.
“I will definitely back Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill, but they will have a lot of difficulties because of the bowling in front of them; one gets the ball in, and the other takes it away. Both of them will try to pitch the ball up, and there the two openers have to manage,” Irfan said during a discussion on Star Sports.
“We are talking about Shubman Gill that his performance in the IPL was not that good, but that is a different format. He started off very well in the red-ball format in Australia. You don’t forget that so soon, and you go according to the format.”
Parthiv Patel backs Rohit Sharma to score runs in WTC final
On the other hand, former India wicket-keeper batsman Parthiv Patel has backed Rohit Sharma to continue his scoring streak in the Test format.
“He (Rohit) will try to be cautious in the first one hour. The sort of approach Rohit Sharma has shown as a Test opener, he is playing very tight, and we see proactiveness in his foot movement. So I feel he has adapted very well as a Test opener,” Parthiv said during the same discussion.
“Once he gets set, we know he plays brilliant shots. It might have been the white-ball format when he scored the five hundred in the 2019 World Cup, but that will be in his mind. So he will be thinking that he can play his shots once he survives the first one hour.”
