IND vs AUS / Rohit Sharma won the toss and decided to bowl first

IND vs AUS: In the World Test Championship (WTC) final match, Rohit Sharma has won the toss and decided to bowl first. India will field with 4 pacers and a spinner. The match is taking place at The Oval ground in England. In England, both the teams are playing against each other for the first time. Ravichandran Ashwin has not got a chance in this match. Ravindra Jadeja is the only spin bowler included in the Indian team.

Playing-11 of both the teams

India: Rohit Sharma (captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, KS Bharat (wicketkeeper), Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj.

Australia: Pat Cummins (c), David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Starc, Scott Boland.

The match will be held at The Oval ground in England. Both the teams will face each other for the first time in England.

Australia has played 176 Tests in England so far, in which it lost only 31% of the matches. At the same time, Team India played 68 matches here and won only 9. Talking about the field, Australia has won only 7 out of 38 Tests at The Oval i.e. 14% of the matches. India played 14 matches here and won only 2.

India's most memorable moment at the Oval too - India defeated England in the 1971 Test played at this ground. Captaincy was done by Ajit Wadekar and leg-spinner Chandrasekhar took 6 wickets for 38 runs. It was the first time India beat England in England, 24 years after independence.

Australia's upper hand in head to head

Talking about head to head, a total of 106 Test matches have been played between India and Australia so far. Australia has won 44 and India has won 32 matches. There were 29 draws and one tie.

Kohli, Shami and Jadeja India's top performers

The Indian fans will be eyeing the trio of Kohli, Shami and Jadeja in the WTC final as all three have been India's top performers on English soil. Kohli has scored 1033 runs on the grounds of England. He is at number four in the list of Indians scoring the most in English pitches. Sachin Tendulkar's name is on top in this list. Tendulkar has scored 1575 runs there.

Talking about Kohli, he scores fifty in every third match on the pitches of England. Kohli has played 16 Test matches in England. In these, he has scored more than one thousand runs at an average of 33.32.

Coming to the bowlers, after Ishant Sharma and Kapil Dev, Mohammed Shami is India's most successful bowler on English pitches. Shami has taken 38 wickets in 13 matches. At the same time, Ravindra Jadeja has not only taken 23 wickets in 11 matches but has also scored 594 runs.

Smith scores a century in every third match in England

Australian batsman Steve Smith's performance on English pitches has been amazing. He has scored 1727 runs in 16 matches at an average of 59.55. Smith is scoring a century in every third match on English pitches. Also David Warner has scored 651 runs in 13 matches. In bowling, Nathan Lyon has taken 45 wickets in 13 matches.

Pitch report

The last Test on Oval's pitch was played in September 2022 between England and South Africa. England won the match by 9 wickets. In this match, 31 wickets fell in 2 innings of both the teams and all the wickets were taken by the pacers. Both teams also had one spinner each. The bounce is good on the oval, so it helps the fast bowlers, but as the match progresses, the pitch also starts helping the spinners. And the same thing goes in favor of India.

Another interesting point is, there has never been a Test match at The Oval in June.

Weather condition

According to AccuWeather, there is no chance of rain for the first 3 days of the Test. It may rain for the next 2 days and for this a reserve day has been kept in the Test. The weather in London will be mostly clear on the first day. The temperature will remain between 22 to 26 degree Celsius.

Possible playing-11 of both the teams

India: Rohit Sharma (captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Shardul Thakur, KS Bharat (wicketkeeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj.

Australia: Pat Cummins (c), David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Starc, Scott Boland