Former Indian opener Wasim Jaffer feels Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill will play a key role in the World Test Championship final against Australia. Gill was in red-hot form in IPL 2023 for Gujarat Titans, amassing 890 runs in 17 matches at an average of 59.33 and an impressive strike rate of 157.80 to finish as the leading run-getter of the tournament.
On the other hand, Rohit will be looking to get back into form after a sub-par IPL 2023 for Mumbai Indians as he could only score 332 runs in 16 matches at an average of 20.75. However, Rohit scored 368 runs in four Test matches on the tour of England in 2021 while opening the innings and played a crucial role in the team’s success.
Meanwhile, Gill returned with scores of 17 and 4 in the rescheduled Test match against England in 2022.
It is well known that openers play a key role while playing in the tough English conditions and the duo of Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill will be looking to give a solid start to their team.
“Openers will have to play a massive role. England is the most challenging place to bat because of the sideways movement. Conditions change so drastically because of the weather. It changes quickly. The duke’s ball also poses a lot of problems. As the ball gets old, it will keep swinging and also starts to reverse. With Starc and Cummins, running at 145 kph, it is going to be challenging,” said Jaffer while talking to Indian Express.
Jaffer reckons facing Australian skipper Pat Cummins will be a huge challenge for the Indian openers and they will have their work cut out if the conditions favor seam bowling.
“Cummins will be a different beast with the duke’s balls. If the conditions will be slightly in favour of them, then they will make life miserable for the Indian openers,” Jaffer said in the interview.
The former domestic giant added that the only concern for the Indian players is the fact they have been playing T20 cricket (IPL 2023) over the last two months and adjusting to the Test format will be a challenge.
“Things are looking good but the only concern is that they have played so much T20 cricket in the past two months and for them to adjust quickly, that is going to be a challenge without having any match practice only four or five days of preparation. I am sure nowadays cricketers have learnt to make that switch very quickly,” Jaffer concluded on the matter.
The WTC final will be played at the Oval from June 7.
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