‘Conditions in England should suit Australia’

NEW DELHI: With just a little over 20 days left for the second edition of the World Test Championship final between India and Australia happening at The Oval from June 7-11, former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting believes the conditions will England will be giving the slight advantage to Pat Cummins & Co as compared to Rohit Sharma and his side.

Australia’s top-order batters Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne have been playing county cricket, as have been pace bowling all-rounders Sean Abbott and Michael Neser. Australia’s overall win percentage at The Oval in Tests stands at 18.42, which is a little higher than India’s at 14.28.

“If you look at it just from a conditions point of view only, you would think that the conditions in England should suit Australia a little bit more, as the English conditions are definitely more like Australia than what they are in India, especially on what we’ve seen the last few times in Australia.”

“I’ve actually been to India and played Test cricket here. We’ve seen the wickets and they’ve played on, which have been very spin friendly wickets and surroundings have always been difficult to play on. But I thought the comeback shown by Australia in the last two Test matches was really pleasing,” said Ponting at the official curtain raiser event of the WTC Final on Friday.

Ponting also claimed that a red kookaburra ball could be used for the coveted clash for a glittering mace. Interestingly, the Dukes ball was used for the inaugural World Test Championship Final at Southampton in 2021, where New Zealand emerged triumphant over India and has been constantly used for Tests in England.

“There’s a neutral venue, there’s also the choice of ball as well, which has been in the news the last few weeks. Will it be the dukes or kookaburra balls? I think it sounds like both teams have decided that it’s going to be the kookaburra ball. Even though you don’t know how the kookaburra ball will be doing in that way.” IANS

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