The 16th edition of the Indian Premier League has reached its final stage, with only a few games left for a team to win the championship. But after the conclusion of the IPL 2023, there will be another big game coming up for the Indian team.
It will be the final of the World Test Championship 2023. Australia and India qualified for the WTC final, and the much-awaited clash will take place between June 7 and 11 at the Kennington Oval, London. The Indian team will fly to the UK after the IPL final and play a four-day game as part of preparation.
Notably, it is the second time that India will feature in the WTC final. They lost the last one against New Zealand in 2021. Thus, it will be a great chance for the Rohit Sharma led team to win the championship. However, it will be a big challenge because a number of key players are not part of the team.
Jasprit Bumrah, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, and Rishabh Pant are not part of the team due to fitness issues, which makes the job more difficult for the Indians. However, they beat Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy by 3-1 at home.
But the conditions in England will be totally difficult. That’s what former Australian captain Ricky Ponting feels. In a media interaction, Ponting said that Australia will head into the WTC final as the favorites because of the English conditions.
He said, “I would have to say Australia are the favorite. I am going more to Australia because of the conditions. If this game was played in India, I would say this was a really hard game for Australia to win. If this game was played in Australia, I would say the Aussies are the heavy favorites.”
He also elaborated, saying that the conditions in England and Australia are pretty similar, which will give an advantage to Pat Cummins and his team. However, Ponting also feels that the biggest wicket for Australia will be Virat Kohli, who has looked in great touch in the ongoing IPL 2023.