The ICC has prepared two pitches for the World Test Championship final which is set to begin on June 7, 2023. The match will start at 3 PM IST. A reserve day has also been put in place in case of a weather intervention. The final will be held at the Oval Stadium in London.
As per reports, the decision to prepare two pitches was taken after oil protesters threatened to destroy the pitch. If the pitch gets damaged, the ICC experts will access it and see if it can be repaired for the match. In case it is beyond repair, the reserve pitch will be checked, and the match will be shifted accordingly.
Both team captains, Rohit Sharma for India and Pat Cummins for Australia have been informed about the update. As per reports, they both have agreed to shift to the reserve pitch in case of an incident so that match does not get called off and abandoned.
In a statement, Cummins said, “It’s something we got in the security briefing a couple of days ago. I’ve heard that they’re aware of it and keeping an eye out. But that’s as much as we’ve heard. So hopefully, it doesn’t happen, obviously. But yeah, I’ve heard there are a few different events that have been affected.”
Determining the pitch state
As per the ICC regulations, several sections will play a vital role in deciding whether the pitch needs to be shifted. First, the on-field umpires will check and determine if the pitch is safe to continue. If they feel it is unreasonable to continue, the ICC match referee will be called after halting the match under section 6.4.1.
Then under section 6.4.4, the on-field umpires will examine the pitch to determine if the pitch can be repaired and if the match can be resumed from the point it was stopped. The match referee will be consulted to make the final decision. It will be the referee’s responsibility to determine if the repair may give an unfair advantage to any side or not, as a portion of the game had already been played on the damaged pitch.
Under section 6.4.7, the referee will make sure to keep the captains and the head of the ground authority in the loop of the decision-making process. Timely public announcements about the situation will be the responsibility of the head of the ground authority.
Squads
India- Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, KS Bharat (wicket-keeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, and Ishan Kishan (wicket-keeper).
Suryakumar Yadav, Mukesh Kumar, and Yashasvi Jaiswal have been placed on the list of standby players.
Australia – Pat Cummins (Captain), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wicket-keeper), Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wicket-keeper), Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy, Michael Neser, Steve Smith (Vice Captain), Mitchell Starc, and David Warner.
Mitch Marsh and Matthew Renshaw are on the standby list.
