KL Rahul or Shubman Gill? Ricky Ponting urges India to play both in WTC Final

Former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting feels India could play both KL Rahul and Shubman Gill in the World Test Championship final against Australia if they qualify for the summit clash. Ponting feels Gill can open the innings in the English conditions whereas Rahul can bat in the middle order.

The WTC Final will be played at the Oval from June 7-11. Rahul had opened the innings with Rohit Sharma in the 2021 Test series against England and had scored 315 runs in four Test matches.

On the other hand, Shubman Gill returned with scores of 17 and 4 in the rescheduled Test match against England in 2022 at Edgbaston, Birmingham.

Meanwhile, Gill replaced KL Rahul in the Indore Test match of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar series but could only return with scores of 21 and 5 against the Aussies. Rahul was dropped after he could only manage scores of 20, 17, and 1 in the three innings he played against the visitors.

“With someone like KL Rahul having gone out of this side and Shubman Gill having come in, both these guys have played a bit of Test match cricket and you could potentially have both of those guys in the same team,” Ponting said on ICC review.

“Maybe Shubman could start at the top and KL could potentially move down into the middle order, because he’s played cricket in those (English) conditions before, albeit at the top of the order. But one thing we know about the UK is that the ball swings for long periods of time during the day. And if the overhead conditions are suitable, then the ball tends to swing right the way through an innings.”

Ponting feels it will be important for both the teams to get their playing XI right and the Oval pitch can be a good pitch to bat if the sun is out.

“Because it’s just a one-off Test match, it will be really important to pick the team that you think is going to have the most success in those conditions,” Ponting said. “The Oval can be a really, really good place to bat as long as the sun is out, it’s probably as good a wicket as any in the UK.

“So I think that’s what it would come down to for India. It would just come down to assessing the conditions and then maybe forgetting about this last series that’s just been played. The conditions that we’re seeing here (in India) are quite extreme. If it was Australia and India, they would both look at the conditions and pick the team that they think was best to win that one-off game.”

India will have to win the fourth Test match against Australia at Ahmedabad to secure their WTC Final qualification.