WATCH – Ravichandran Ashwin joins The Oval pitch doctor, seeks update over pitch ahead of the WTC 2023 finals against Australia

India is set to face Australia in the World Test Championship (WTC) finals at The Oval in London from June 7. Ahead of the game, some pictures of the pitch have been making rounds on social media which left fans in splits. In the pictures, it can be seen that there is a lot of grass on the pitch, and it is going to help seamers a lot.

Meanwhile, ace India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin joined the head pitch doctor of The Oval on his YouTube channel and revealed that the pitch is going to be bouncy. Notably, the ground has generally provided real bounce and has been ideal for batting, although there will be some concern about how the pitch will operate given the WTC final will be the stadium’s first-ever Test in the month of June.

In the viral video, Ashwin jokingly confronted pitch curator Lee Fortis about the pitch and asked why he did not make a pitch helping spinners. He said, “You have always prepared good pitches. But today, some of our boys got hit on the practice pitches. So is it going to be similar? What do you think? It bounced a lot today. You don’t like me? You don’t get it to spin, right? Can we expect a nice and bouncy Brett Lee pitch?”

In response to this, Fortis stated that The Oval will feature a competitive pitch with a lot of bounce. He said, “Good Oval Pitch. The one thing I can guarantee is that it will be bouncy.” Notably, the match conditions will be one of the biggest challenges for the Indian team and they would need to overcome it as soon as possible.

Here is the video:

🤣🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/VaC7sjzOo7

— rajendra tikyani (@Rspt1503) June 6, 2023

We are not focusing on external things: Rohit Sharma

Ahead of the prestigious game, India skipper Rohit Sharma joined the press conference on Tuesday. While speaking with the media, Rohit revealed that India will not focus much on external things and prepare well for the game. He said, “We’ve been hearing, not much of cricket is played here in June.”

“County season has been played here. We saw there was a game played a couple of weeks back here. It’s not like it’s the first game of the season happening on this ground. We are quite aware of what the conditions are, what is going to happen in the next five days,” he further added. Notably, Rohit, under his own leadership, will be keen to get mace home. However, an injury concern mounts over the Indian skipper.