Australia v India ICC World Test Championship Final: Prediction & Best Bets

Australia and India will renew hostilities in the ICC World Test Championship final at The Oval on Wednesday. The two teams recently met in a Test series earlier this year with India winning the four-match series 2-1 on home soil. Lwanele Poswayo has a prediction and the best bets for the World Test Championship final.

Steve Smith

India are one of Steve Smith’s favourite opponents in Tests. Against the Men in Blue, he has featured in a total of 35 innings, in which he has scored 1887 runs at an average of 65.07 including 8 hundreds.

Like most of Australia’s batsmen, he wasn’t at his very best in the Test series in India earlier this year but will come into this game well-prepared after a decent stint in the County Championship, where he signed off with a score of 89 for Sussex.

Back him to be Australia’s top first-innings batter at 3.60.

Pat Cummins

When you consider the type of bowlers that have had success at The Oval recently, Pat Cummins fits the mould perfectly. He’ll be fully fit and rearing to go to lead his side to their first WTC crown. He’ll cause a lot of problems for the Indian batting lineup with his consistent pace, accuracy and seam.

He’s also taken 46 wickets in 12 Test against India and could be a great pick to be player of the match in this final.

Highest Individual Score

In the previous Test at this venue, the Proteas were dismissed for 118 and 169 last summer and England 158, before the hosts eventually won by nine wickets as Ollie Robinson claimed seven in the match. The average first innings score in the last 5 matches at this venue is 258.

We should expect a better wicket for this final but I believe it will be suited for the bowlers. With that in mind, and with India’s lack of preparation for this encounter, I expect it to be a relatively low-scoring game with no batter scoring more than 143.5 runs.

Stats

The average first innings score at this venue in Tests is 343, which comes down to 258 over the last five matches.

This is the first time that The Oval will host a Test in June. The earliest Test so far started on July 8, 1982, when England played India.

Australia have lost 17 of the 38 Tests they played at this venue – the most defeats at any single English ground for them.

Mohammed Siraj to David Warner in Tests: 2/36 in six innings.

Nathan Lyon has taken Virat Kohli’s wicket in seven of 31 H2H innings.

Kohli has a top score of just 58 from his last 15 Test innings in the UK (3×50, 2×0, average 30.60).

Pat Cummins averages 24.6 with the ball to Cheteshwar Pujara at a rate of 1.72rpo!

Ravichandran Ashwin has head-to-head figures of 5/84 against Steve Smith since the beginning of 2020.

Ashwin dismissed Alex Carey five times for just 25 runs in the series earlier this year.

Prediction

Despite India winning the most recent Test series between these sides, most of their players have been playing in the IPL and will come into this game underprepared. Australia’s key players, on the other hand, have been playing County Cricket and domestic cricket and should come into this game match ready.

India also struggles in England. Although their record has improved recently, I’m backing the Aussies to win this game at decent odds of 1.95.