'The injuries to Jasprit Bumrah and Rishabh Pant badly affect India' - Ian Chappell opens up on India's chances ahead of WTC final

Ian Chappell, the former Australia skipper, feels that in the absence of pacer Jasprit Bumrah and wicket-keeper batter Rishabh Pant, the Australian pace attack in English conditions would give Australia an advantage in the World Test Championship final (WTC) against India. Notably, the WTC final will be played from June 7 at The Oval in London.

Apart from Bumrah and Pant, there are other injury concerns in the Indian camp leading into the WTC final. Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul are two other players who have been ruled out of the summit clash.

According to Chappell, the injuries to Bumrah and Pant can have a negative impact on India, who would have been the favourites if these two were available. He also claimed that the unavailability of Hardik Pandya, who last played a first-class match in 2018, can also harm India’s performance.

"The injuries to Jasprit Bumrah and Rishabh Pant badly affect India, as they would be outright favourites with these two playing. The somewhat surprising unavailability of allrounder Hardik Pandya also harms India, as he could have provided them with the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle," the Aussie legend wrote in a column for ESPNcricinfo.

He went on to mention that since many of the Indian players who have been named in the WTC final squad will be heading straight into the summit clash after a two-month long participation in the Indian Premier League (IPL) hence it will make things even more difficult. However, he also recalled how brilliant Ravi Bopara was in the Caribbean in 2009, where he played a brilliant outing in the Test series between hosts West Indies and England after featuring in the IPL season.

"To make matters even more difficult, many of the players involved have only competed in the IPL in the lead-up to the one-off Test. While this may not seem to be the ideal preparation, it's worth recalling the opinion of former England batter Ravi Bopara. In 2009, Bopara went from the fledgling IPL into a Test series against West Indies and reckoned he was ideally prepared because T20 got his feet moving and put him in a positive frame of mind," he added.