WTC Final 2023: Ravi Shastri picks his favourites, says ‘if Bumrah was here…’

India is playing their second World Test Championship Final after losing out to New Zealand during the inaugural edition of the tournament. Australia, on the other hand, are playing their first WTC Final after narrowly missing out the first time around owing to slow over rate.

In terms of one-on-one encounters in the Test matches, Australia holds a 44-32 lead in the 106 matches that the two sides have played so far. However, India have an excellent record against the Kangaroos in recent years, having beaten them on home turf in two successive Border Gavaskar Trophy tournaments.

Australia’s bowling attack also suffered a major setback after Josh Hazlewood was ruled out of the World Test Championship Final on Sunday owing to issues in his left Achilles paired with strain in the left side arm.

However, most former cricketers have picked Australia as slight favourites for the test match given that the test match will be held in England.

Ravi Shastri gave his opinion on the favourites for the WTC Final 2023 while speaking to Star Sports, he said, “Look at the pace attacks. Which side has the better attack? If Bumrah was here, then I would say equal, with Shami, Bumrah and Siraj. But now when you look at that Australian attack – Cummins and Starc, though Hazlewood is gone,”

In a previous conversation with Star Sports, he had also said that the current Indian team is good enough to win the WTC Final and has played ‘very good’ cricket in ICC tournaments but luck has not always gone in their favour.

Former Australian captain Ricky Pointing also gave a slight edge to the Kangaroos while maintaining there isn’t much of a difference between the two teams in the last two years. He said, “Slight favourites, yes. There wasn’t much a difference between the two sides in the last two years which means that they have beaten more oppositions than they have lost to,”

Updated: 05 Jun 2023, 10:20 AM IST