Wednesday marks the start of a massive few months of international cricket as the ICC World Test Championship Final between Australia and India gets underway from The Oval in London.
Check out our preview and betting tips for the event below and remember to head to our Cricket Tips page for regular updates throughout the Ashes and beyond.
ICC World Test Championship Final Betting Tips
The Oval, Wednesday 7th June, 7.30pm (AEST)
Australia
While there is no doubt that the Aussies will be all in on this Test Championship Final, this game will also serve as an important warm up game for the upcoming Ashes. The Test side hasn’t played since their four Test series in India in February, where they came away with a 2-1 loss in a series that was more competitive than pundits predicted.
Travis Head took the reigns at the top of the order for the injured David Warner in that series, but looks likely to return to No.5 for the Test Championship, as Warner embarks on one more tilt at an English summer. The rest of the top seven looks as set as an Australian side has looked in recent memory.
The bowling is also pretty rock solid, outside of the Achilles injury to Josh Hazlewood, which will keep him out of the side for The Oval. The Aussies will likely go with Mitch Starc, Nathan Lyon and Scott Boland to pair with skipper Pat Cummins.
Predicted XI: David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey, Mitch Starc, Pat Cummins, Nathan Lyon, Scott Boland
India
The bulk of the Indian side have just wrapped up their respective IPL campaigns so will need to quickly switch back into Test mode. They too haven’t played a Test since their series against Australia, but it’s unlikely much will change on their team front from that series.
Star paceman Jasprit Bumrah remains on the sidelines with injury, as does first choice wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant. The main question at the selection table for India will be how many spinners they decide to play in the more seam friendly English conditions.
In India, they play three spinners on the regular, but I think they drop that to two in England, alongside three pacemen with star all-rounder Ravi Jadeja filling the roll at No.7.
Predicted XI: Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Srikar Bharat, Ravi Jadeja, Ravi Ashwin, Shardu Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj
Match Predection
Incredibly tough game to call here. Australia will no doubt be full of confidence after taking it right up to the Indians after a Border-Gavaskar series that was supposed to be a whitewash. There is no doubt that the English conditions favour the Australians, with their star pace attack supported by Cameron Green set for a big tour with the swinging Duke ball.
The Aussies start as $1.95 favourites and I’m siding with them at that price. The bulk of the Indian side has been in T20 mode for the past few months, while the key Australian Test players, particularly Labuschagne and Smith, have been playing county cricket preparing themselves in English conditions.
India will take some time to acclimatise to the conditions after a busy IPL season, and they haven’t been fantastic playing in England in recent history, losing 13 of their last 19 games there dating back to the turn of the decade.
