Labuschagne and Pujara’s County experience will come handy in WTC Final, says Sachin Tendulkar

Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar believes Marnus Labuschagne and Cheteshwar Pujara’s County experience will come in handy in the World Test Championship final for their respective teams. Pujara scored 545 runs in eight innings at an average of 68.12, including three centuries while playing for Sussex in County Championship Two.

On the other hand, Labuschagne scored 502 runs in eight innings at an average of 71.71 while playing for Glamorgan in County Championship Two. However, Australia’s number three was cleaned up by Mohammed Shami right after the Lunch break after scoring 26 runs on the opening day of the WTC Final against India.

“Of course, playing in County cricket can be of great value. Both Pujara and Labuschagne had a considerable outing in the County cricket recently. Smith not as much as the other two, but whatever match practice one can get is very handy because the conditions are different,” Sachin told news agency PTI in an interview.

Sachin, who had a great record while playing in the English conditions during his heydays, feels playing a practice match would have been an ideal way to prepare for WTC Final but the Indian players landed in England right after taking part in the IPL.

“Our guys have played T20 and now they have gone to England, so are some players from Australia as they were playing T20 here but I believe playing practice matches… no better practice than that,” he said.

Sachin added the Indian spinners will enjoy bowling at the Oval as they will be help for them. However, India decided to drop their lead spinner Ravichandran Ashwin because of the overcast conditions and played with a solitary spinner in Ravindra Jadeja.

“The Indian team will be happy that they are playing at the Oval. The nature of the Oval pitch is such that it assists the spinners as the match goes on. So, spinners will come into play a little bit,” Sachin said.

“It need not be always a turning track as sometimes the spinners rely a lot on the bounce, sometimes that little bit of zip that they get off the pitch, also on the overhead conditions and it depends a lot on the shiny side of the ball,” the legendary batter concluded.

Australia was 160-3 after 44 overs on the opening day.