Ravi Shastri names his combined playing XI for WTC final

Former Indian head coach and cricketer Ravi Shastri revealed his combined Indian Test XI selecting players from the two ICC World Test Championship finalists, India and Australia. The WTC final is now a fortnight away. In the recent episode of the ICC Review, Shastri admitted that he found the task of building a combined playing XI difficult due to the sheer amount of world-class talent available on both sides. But the India great stuck his neck out and settled on a final XI, in which surprisingly only four Indian players could make the cut. While weighing out his captaincy options Shastri decided to go with Rohit Sharma instead of Steve Smith. “I would give the captaincy to Rohit because he’s much more experienced than Pat,” Shastri said as quoted by ICC. “He’s been around and he’s captained sides for a long time. If Steve Smith was captain of Australia, then maybe it’s a different story, but since it’s Pat Cummins and Rohit Sharma, Rohit wins it.” “Plus, you know, as a captain, you’re a certainty in the XI so he opens the batting.” With Rohit taking up the opening spot along with the captaincy role, Shastri was stuck in a dilemma. The likes of Australian duo David Warner, Usman Khawaja and India’s emerging right-handed talented batter Shubman Gill are all in the mix. Only England star Joe Root scored more runs than Khawaja during the 2021-23 World Test Championship cycle and Shastri said the Australian left-hander deserves to get the nod for the opening spot along with Rohit. “It’s a tight one between Usman Khawaja and Shubman Gill,” Shastri admitted. “Shubman is the rising young star and he’s a terrific player, but Usman Khawaja, just by current form and the number of runs he’s got over the last couple of years, I think he gets in there,” Shastri said it was an easy decision to pick No.3, No.4 and No.5, with the No.1 ranked Test batter Marnus Labuschagne and experienced duo Virat Kohli and Steve Smith to fill these vital spots. “Number thre