The Indian cricket team will be playing its second consecutive final of the World Test Championship at The Oval, London from 7 June 2023 against Australia, while some Indian cricketers are already in England, Ajinkya Rahane, Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Shami will leave for England after the IPL finals.
Last time India lost the WTC finals to New Zealand and this time the Indian cricket fans are keeping their fingers crossed and hoping that India becomes the World Test Champion by defeating Australia.
Ricky Ponting, the former Australian cricketer, recently appeared in a show and he made a combined test squad from the Indian and Australian teams. For opening the innings, Ricky Ponting has selected Australian batter Usman Khawaja as the former Aussie skipper states that Khawaja has been outstanding in the past few years whether he has played at home or away and he is certainly getting better as he is getting older.
In order to get a left-right combination, Ricky Ponting selects Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma as the second opener and Ponting wants Rohit Sharma to lead the team as he feels that the Indian skipper has more experience of leading the team than Pat Cummins so Hitman should lead the team.
Ricky Ponting then chooses Virat Kohli and Steve Smith as both of them are great cricketers and they are on the top in everybody’s list. He further says that they both have exceptional test records and have scored many centuries. According to Ricky Ponting, though Virat Kohli was out of form for couple of years but the manner in which he has bounced back and has performed against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the former Indian skipper should certainly get a place in the combined test XI.
Other than Rohit and Virat, Ricky Ponting selects two more Indian players – Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Shami and the remaining squad was completed by including Aussie cricketers only.
After seeing only 4 Indian players in the combined test XI, the Indian Twitterati gave mixed reactions and here are some selected tweets:
Only 4 indians vaah apne desh ki hi khicho but dekhna india 🇮🇳 hi wtc final jitegi.
— Vidhubha Zala (@z_vidhubha) May 28, 2023
Why wud anyone pick combined 11 of wtc
— x (@JwickRloaded) May 28, 2023
Unfortunate he did not pick Ravi Ashwin ..WHo is going to be game changer according to me ..Let's See @ashwinravi99
— काटा किर्र्र्र र्रर्रर्र (@namowani333) May 28, 2023
Only four Indians? Tell me he is not biased
— Nirmal Jyothi (@majornirmal) May 28, 2023
How come Cummins ,siraj is better than him and gill in place of Rohit
— Mithun (@Mithun71389478) May 28, 2023
Ye konsi 20 over league ki team lag Rahi hai . 4 overseas player jaise 4 Indian player liye hai
— Ayush Tale (@tale_ayush) May 28, 2023
WTC turned into BBL 😯
— DRP 🇮🇳 (@its_DRP) May 28, 2023
No Ashwin, no win
— 💎 (@iam_so_obsessed) May 28, 2023
That confidence on Rohit Sharma !
— Fahir Maithutty (@fahir_me) May 28, 2023
Koi sense h is team ki ??
— Deepak Sharma 🇮🇳 (@De_Shar11) May 28, 2023
Seems like He picked team fr BBL ..with IPL rules of 4 foreign players ..
— Harish.A (@HarishA61619424) May 29, 2023
What do you think of this combined test XI and do we really need it? Let us know your opinion in this regard.