Sunil Gavaskar highlights why Cheteshwar Pujara has a crucial role to play for India in the WTC Final

As the buzz for the WTC final gets louder and louder, experts have started voicing their opinions about the massive clash and how the two teams must line up for the grand occasion. With the final slated to be played from June 7th to 11th with June 12th being the reserve day of the contest, Team India will be hoping to make amends for their earlier loss to New Zealand in the preceding edition’s final.

One of India’s key players for the final, Cheteshwar Pujara is frequently being talked about and is almost the focal point of all the discussions around India’s batting unit. Pujara was a part of the Sussex side for the last couple of months and the last year proved to be an elemental one for the stylish right-hander as he ruled the roost for them in stellar fashion.

In a chat with Star Sports, former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar opened up on how Pujara’s experience will be valuable to the team, saying, “The fact that he has been around will mean that he will have also seen how the pitch has been behaving at The Oval. He might not have played at The Oval, he might be in Sussex not too far away from London but he will have kept an eye on what is happening and his inputs will be invaluable as far as the batting unit is concerned or even as far as the captaincy is concerned.”

Gavaskar added, “He will have the captains here as far as the Oval pitch is concerned and don't forget he has also been captaining the team, so he definitely will have worked out quite a few strategies seeing that Steve Smith, the Australian, is his teammate at the moment.”

He concluded by saying, “I think they are going to look at their bat speed. Coming from T20 where the bat speed is very fast to Test cricket where the bat speeds have to be a lot more controlled, that is something they'll need to do.”