The World Test Championship 2023 final is just a few weeks away as India and Australia prepare themselves to lock horns to be crowned the second World Champions of the longest format of the game. The two teams will be seen going against each other from June 7, at The Oval, in London. Ahead of the summit clash, former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has expressed his desire of seeing a result-oriented game.
Ponting said that the cricket world doesn’t want a drawn game and hence he would advise the two captains to go hard and play aggressive cricket and make sure there’s a result at the end.
“Oh, look. I think the world, the cricket-loving world, deserves to see an unbelievably good Test match with a result. You know, we don’t want to have a drawn game. So I’d be saying to both captains, Let’s go out there, let’s play good, hard, aggressive Test cricket. And let’s just think about it, make sure there’s a result of the end,” said Ponting said in an event organized by Star Sports.
The legendary Australian captain further said that the two captains should even put their teams on the line to create a chance to win the game because that’s what the fans deserve.
“If it means that you’re at, if it means that you got to put you yourself or your team on the line to, you know, to potentially lose the game, you give yourself a chance to win the game doing it because I think that’s what everyone that loves the test match wants to see, right?,” he added.
Notably, it will be India’s second appearance in the World Test Championship final after they lost the inaugural edition against New Zealand. The Rohit Sharma-led side finished on the second spot in the WTC points table having a points percentage of 58.80.
Australia have an upper hand coming into WTC final 2023
On the other hand, Australia will be playing their first WTC final after finishing on the top of the points table with a points percentage of 66.67. They narrowly missed a chance to play in the inaugural final in 2021 as they finished on the third spot with a points percentage of 69.2 narrowly behind New Zealand who finished with a points percentage of 70.
Australia seem to have an upper hand ahead of the fixture as India have been marred by injuries to their several big players who will miss out on the big game. On the other hand, Australia don’t have many injury concerns and many of their players are not even playing in the ongoing IPL 2023 hence they will be fresh for the big game.