Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting omitted the in-form Shubman Gill and the veteran off-spinner R Ashwin from his combined XI of India and Australia players ahead of the final showdown between the two teams- the World Test Championship (WTC) Final.
Rohit Sharma and Pat Cummins’ sides will compete for the biggest prize in Test cricket in the WTC Final 2023, from June 7 at The Oval.
The fact that Ricky Ponting’s combined India-Australia XI had 7 Australian players tells that Australia will start the WTC Final as favorites over the Asian giants.
Ricky Ponting went with Rohit Sharma and Usman Khawaja as openers, followed by the famed trio of Marnus Labuschagne, Virat Kohli, and Steve Smith. The legendary Australian batsman and captain picked Ravindra Jadeja as the all-rounder ahead of Cameron Green, followed by Alex Carey as the wicketkeeper over the inexperienced KS Bharat.
For the bowling attack, Ponting went with three Australians – Cummins, Starc, and Lyon, over Ashwin and Siraj, along with Shami.
Even though Shubman Gill has been in surreal form in recent times, Ponting went with Khawaja, who has more experience than Gill and also provides the left-handed option. Warner hasn’t been in the best of his nick, so he was easy to be ignored here.
“I’m going left hand-right hand, so I’ll go for Rohit Sharma as the other opener. He’s not just entirely form-based either. I wanted him to be captain of the side. Pat Cummins, I’ll mention him later, he’ll be in this side, but just from the experience point of view with Rohit, he’s obviously been captain a lot longer than Pat has, so I thought he deserved to be the captain of this team,” Ricky Ponting explained on the latest episode of ICC Review.
“Pretty hard to go past the next couple I’ve got in the batting line-up, which are Virat Kohli and Steve Smith. If you talk about great players of the last decade, both of these guys will be right at the top of anyone’s list. Both with exceptional Test records and both make a lot of hundreds. I know it has been a couple of years and been a bit of a lean sort of trot with Virat, but he bounced back to his best in that last series against Australia and thoroughly deserves to be picked in the middle order.”
The former Aussie skipper is thoroughly impressed with Jadeja’s form in Test cricket.
“What I’ve seen with Ravi Jadeja the last two or three years in Test cricket is how much his batting has improved, and he can easily hold down a number six or number seven spot.”
About Shami, he said: “I know we’re picking a Test team here, and Shami’s Test record the last couple of years has been outstanding, but some of his bowling over the last few weeks in the IPL has also been absolutely unbelievable,”
Ricky Ponting’s Combined India Australia XI:
Rohit Sharma (c), Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, Ravindra Jadeja, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Mohammad Shami
“It’s a pretty good side. I wouldn’t want to be another team that had to come up playing against that team. It’s got pretty much every base covered, that’s why I think everything leads to this being an intriguing World Test Championship Final,” Ricky Ponting concluded.
