'About Picking The Best XI': Former England Player Backs This Batter To Play In Place Of Shubman Gill In WTC Final

According to him, KL Rahul is a perfect fit to open the innings instead of Shubman Gill.

Shubman Gill in action.

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India’s young batter Shubman Gill has been in terrific form in all three formats of the game and as a result, he found a place in India’s squad for the WTC finals against Australia. But it seems like former England batter Michael Vaughan is not happy with the selection of Gill. According to him, KL Rahul is a perfect fit to open the innings instead of Shubman Gill.

Vaughan feels Rahul can tackle the swing in a sleek manner than Gill.  "The only change that they could make in English conditions is that KL Rahul plays the moving ball better than Shubman Gill. Shubman's a tremendous young player, but you've got to win that one game of cricket. Forget history; it's about picking the best XI to win the World Test Championship. When it's straight, Shubman is a dangerous player, but I've seen a few little technical deficiencies. When the ball moves, he takes his hand a little bit too much towards the ball.”

"He snicks off quite consistently. I'm not sure they will do that (replace Shubman with KL Rahul) because I'm not in the selection room. (But) don't pick a team based on what's next or who's going to play in the West Indies; you've got to pick the team for that one game of cricket," Vaughan said to Cricbuzz.

However, KL Rahul’s numbers are not impressive in Test cricket for a while now. Talking about the IPL 2023, he showed some form by scoring a few fifties but then his strike rate has been great. The  ICC World Test Championship final is scheduled to take place at the Oval in London from June 7-11 where India and Australia will be locking horns.

India's squad for WTC final: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, K L Rahul, KS Bharat (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat.