WTC Final: Former India women’s cricketer Anjum Chopra has spoken out on the men’s team’s defeat in the recent ICC World Test Championship (WTC) final. The Indian batting lineup struggled against the Australian bowling assault, resulting in a humiliating 209-run defeat at The Oval in London.
Notably, India underperformed in both the batting and bowling categories during the crucial Test match. After surrendering 469 runs to Australia in their first innings, India could only muster 296 runs in their second innings. Australia subsequently declared at 270/8 and bowled out India for 234 runs to win the tournament.
Chopra was questioned in an exclusive interview with News 18 if Pant’s absence was a key factor for India in the one-off Test. She responded that Pant was a significant loss for the team, but she praised keeper-batter KS Bharat, saying he was superb behind the stumps. She went on to suggest that making analogies between Bharat’s and Pant’s batting in the format is wrong.
“He’s obviously a huge miss. But let us not be too harsh on KS Bharat. I think he did an excellent job of keeping it. That was his major responsibility, and he excelled at it. If we say we have to rely on his batting and since we didn’t have the sort of performance that Rishabh Pant could bring the team, I believe we’re looking at it incorrectly,” Anjum Chopra said.
Chopra slams India’s batsmen for their performance in the WTC final.
The cricketer-turned-commentator criticised India’s hitters, claiming that the side has a top order that bats and a middle order that supports. The 46-year-old went on to argue that flipping things around results in the wrong perception. Pant is a terrific player, she noted, and the sooner he returns, the better for him and everyone else.
“We have a top-order that is supposed to bat, a middle-order that is supposed to support, and a bottom-order that is only supposed to assist. If you flip things over, you’re reading them incorrectly. Having said that, Rishabh is a talented player, and the sooner he returns, the better for him, supporters like myself, and everyone else,” the former cricketer remarked.
For cricket matches live, cricket score today, cricket live score, cricket daily updates, all cricket updates, cricket score and other cricket news follow Livematchupdates.com.
