"The Australian is his teammate at the moment" - Sunil Gavaskar on Cheteshwar Pujara helping India plan for Steve Smith in WTC Final
Former Indian legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar feels veteran batter Cheteshwar Pujara could give Team India some crucial inputs about how to deal with Australian star Steve Smith during the World Test Championship (WTC) final beginning on June 7.
Pujara and Smith played together for Sussex in the County Championship heading into the WTC Final and Gavaskar reckons the former might have some valuable information about Smith's weakness. He is a massive wicket for India and Gavaskar is hopeful that Pujara's inputs might just do the trick.
Speaking exclusively to Star Sports on ‘Follow the Blues’, here's what Sunil Gavaskar had to say about Cheteshwar Pujara:
"Don’t forget he has also captaining the (Sussex) team, so he definitely will have worked out quite a few strategies seeing that Steve Smith. The Australian is his teammate at the moment."
Sunil Gavaskar on Cheteshwar Pujara's experience in England
While most of the Indian players haven't spent more than a week in England preparing for the WTC final, Sunil Gavaskar reckons Pujara's County experience will be crucial. The right-hander has been playing County cricket for a while and is accustomed to the conditions.
On this, Pujara stated:
“The fact that he is been around will mean that he will have also seen how the pitch has been behaving at The Oval. 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."
India WTC final squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Ravichandran Ashwin, KS Bharat (wk), Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja, Virat Kohli, Ishan Kishan (wk), Cheteshwar Pujara, Axar Patel, Ajinkya Rahane, Mohammad Shami, Mohammad Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Jaydev Unadakt, Umesh Yadav.
Reserves: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Mukesh Kumar, Suryakumar Yadav.