The Sports Buff ⚽️ ⚾️ 🏈

India’s cricketers will be hoping to go one better when they face Australia in the World Test Championship, which starts tomorrow. Rohit Sharma’s men were beaten finalists against inaugural winners New Zealand last year under the captaincy of Virat Kohli.

The Indians will be looking to go one better under Sharma, who is seen by me as one of the best leaders in the modern game. During his tenure as leader of the national team, arguably he hasn’t quite enjoyed the levels of success he would have wanted.

Starting tomorrow at Surrey’s Kia Oval ground in London, the Mumbai Indian skipper will be looking to change that. Preparation for the final has been far from ideal for India.

Shreyas Iyer, who has become a mainstay of the middle order is out injured and will miss the final, owing to a back complaint, which is a huge miss indeed.

KL Rahul is also injured. The vice-captain, who is in the side as a wicket-keeper batsman, got injured in the IPL season, which forced him to miss the rest of the tournament.

The uncapped very talented Ishan Kishan does come into the squad, but Srikar Bharat looks likely to be the man who will be given the gloves and make the playing 11.

Although Mumbai Indian’s wicket-keeper batsman Kishan is arguably the better batsman.

Bharat though is seen as the better gloveman, so the Gujarat Titans man will be more likely given the nod in a game where runs on the board will no doubt be crucial.

Star bowler Jasprit Bumrah remains out.

As for Australia, they will arguably be coming into this game fresh, especially since players like captain Pat Cummins didn’t play in this year’s IPL.

In comparison to India’s injury woes, Australia have a clean bill of health

India’s premier T20 event went on for a few days, due to the bad weather, which shortens their preparation time further. It’s also worth noting they didn’t play any warm-up games.

Some of the Indian team have arrived in England already such as former captain Virat Kohli. Australia did top the rankings before the final, but in the final that counts for little.

Cummins’ side have won 11 of their last 19 tests and arguably do have the better attack, even with Josh Hazelwood injured with a side strain.

The challenge for India is to try and not let Australia’s batting line-up the chance to settle in, if they do the World Test Championship could end very quickly.

Their spinners have impressed too. Todd Murphy did well against India, in the Subcontinent
India you have been warned. The World Test Championship final starts tomorrow at Surrey’s Kia Oval ground in London, England.

Check out our content partner;

https://amourscents.com/?ref=8jvems1i

Use my code; AYYAZTHEBEARDED and you can get 10% off your overall shop on their wonderful products.

Here at the-sports-buff.com, we have enjoyed serving you the readers. Thank you for your support and your feedback. We are aiming to grow, and we need your help.

We please need your support as we look to grow and improve our site. With as little or as much as you can do to our site to grow, so it be one of the pioneers of sports that we know it can be, we appreciate if you can donate, as much or as little as you can. With your donation, we are determined to donate part of it to a local sports community centre.

Nothing is quite as powerful as sport is. Thank you.