WTC Final: Cheteshwar Pujara's Inputs On Oval Wicket Will Be Invaluable For India, Says Sunil Gavaskar

Cheteshwar Pujara was the captain of the Sussex side for this County Season.

Cheteshwar Pujara of India practices during India training prior to the ICC World Test Championship Final 2023 at Arundel Cricket Club on May 30, 2023 in Arundel, England.

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Former India opener Sunil Gavaskar believes that Cheteshwar Pujara's inputs would be very critical for Team India ahead of the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) final in London against Australia on June 7-11. Notably, while most players who will feature in that summit clash set to be played at the Oval will be coming fresh from an IPL season, Pujara was captainining the Sussex side in the County Championship even sharing the dressing room with Steve Smith who he will now be locking horns against in the high-profile fixture.

Gavaskar said that considering that Pujara has even been leading Sussex, he can help in making some captaincy suggestions. The Little Master who has himself captained India during his playing days feels Pujara would have taken a closer look at the Oval pitch knowing that they are to play the final here and thus his assessment would be extremely important.

"The fact that he is been around will mean that he will have also seen how the pitch has been behaving at The Oval," Gavaskar told Star Sports.

"He might not have played at The Oval, he might be in Sussex not too far away from London but he will have kept an eye on what is happening and his inputs will be invaluable as far as the batting unit is concerned or even as far as the captaincy is concerned," he added.

"He will have the captains here as far as the Oval pitch is concerned and don't forget he has also been captaining the team, so he definitely will have worked out quite a few strategies seeing that Steve Smith, the Australian is his teammate at the moment," Gavaskar he said.

With KL Rahul ruled out due to an injury, KS Bharat is almost guaranteed of a place in the Playing XI for the WTC final. However, it would be interesting to see of both Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja get a chance or one of them have to make a place for an extra seamer.