Cricket News
WATCH: The Oval’s pitch doctor shares insight on how track will pan out in WTC 2023 final
India lost the 2019-2021 World Test Championship final to New Zealand at Southampton.
The World Test Championship (WTC) 2021-23 final will be played between India and Australia starting from June 7 at The Oval. The head pitch doctor at The Oval Lee Fortis gave his insights on how the pitch at the venue would behave. The pitch has traditionally been a batting paradise and has always offered bounce that has been beneficial to both batters and bowlers.
Ravichandran Ashwin in a YouTube video ahead of the WTC final joked with the pitch doctor as to why he does not make pitches that are spin-friendly. He further prodded Lee and asked him if there will be a bounce present at the oval pitch. India won their last Test match at the Oval against England. Ashwin has picked up 474 wickets for India in Test cricket.
Bounce is the one thing I can guarantee on the Oval Pitch- Pitch doctor Lee Fortis
Ashwin 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 You don’t like me? You don’t get it to spin, right? Can we expect a nice and bouncy Brett Lee pitch?” Ashwin said to the curator with a smile. Ashwin played the last WTC final at Edgbaston against New Zealand in 2021.
Here is the video:
In response to the question, the pitch curator Lee Fortis talked about how the Oval will have a competitive pitch which has a lot of bounce. He said, “Good Oval Pitch. It will be bouncy that’s the one thing that I can guarantee, it’ll be bouncy.” India will be playing their second WTC final in the second cycle of the tournament. Australia will be playing their maiden WTC final. India is ranked no 1 in Tests and Australia is ranked no 2 in Tests respectively.
Talking about the weather, as per reports clear weather is expected on four of five days of the final. Rain is mostly expected on Saturday. If the weather is clear for the most part of the marquee clash, then there will be some high-quality cricket on offer for the England crowd to watch out for.
