The all-important final of the World Test Championship is merely a few days away and both India and New Zealand are gearing up for the challenge at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Southampton. Both sides have their sights set on becoming the champions of the inaugural edition of the World Test Championship.
The pitches in England are known to favour fast bowlers and as a result, New Zealand’s fast bowling unit of Trent Boult, Tim Southee, Kyle Jaimeson and the rest might end up troubling India’s batsmen. Former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan also joined in on the topic and mentioned that Indian openers Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma might face difficulties in England. New Zealand have a lot of pace and versatility in their ranks and they might have the edge over the Indian batsmen.
“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 performances in the IPL were 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,” the former all-rounder added.
Shubman Gill had a dream Test debut series against Australia. He tackled the threat of Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, and Pat Cummins with ease and went on to score a crucial knock of 91 runs in the final innings of the Gabba Test. Gill’s heroics in that Test helped India register a historic series victory.
On the other hand, former Indian wicket-keeper Parthiv Patel is of the opinion that Rohit Sharma will continue his fabulous scoring streak in the longest 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 hundreds 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.”
