After suffering a muscle strain due to the Mumbai heat in the semi-final, India’s key batsman Virat Kohli on Sunday skipped the optional net session for the second consecutive day to stay fresh for the World Cup 2023 final against Australia. Kohli struggled with a hamstring injury while scoring his 50th ODI century, but he fielded for most of the semi-final against New Zealand.
The Indian team’s travel schedule has been hectic, but the support staff has handled the players’ workload well, so Kohli was given rest along with the fast bowlers. All three fast bowlers and Kohli did not participate in the pre-final session in Motera. Captain Rohit thoroughly inspected the pitch in Ahmedabad for the second consecutive day, and he believes that there is a slight difference between this pitch and the one on which he played against Pakistan on October 14.
Rohit said, “There was no grass on the wicket of the match against Pakistan. There is some grass on this wicket. That wicket was drier than this, I don’t know, maybe you know. I haven’t seen the wicket yet, but I think it will be slow. It’s not going to change too much, but it’s always good to see the pitch on the day of the game and then assess. The Indian team is unlikely to change its winning combination, but they can also play Ravichandran Ashwin.”
Rohit said, “We have maintained for a long time that decisions should be taken after seeing the pitch on the day of the game, and the players are also aware of this.” However, he did not know how much role dew would play as the temperature had dropped at this time. He said, “If we talk about change in conditions, the temperature has dropped a bit. I don’t know how big a factor dew will be here because in that match against Pakistan, when we trained before the match, there was a lot of dew, but there was no dew during the match.”
