Australia vs. India Betting Tips: Two bets for World Test Championship Final

The Ashes may just be a couple of weeks away, but first, there’s the small matter of the World Test Championship Final between India and Australia at the Oval to get through, starting at 10.30am on Wednesday morning.

Some Australian fans have joked about how this game is the highest-quality Ashes warm-up game they’ve ever had, but don’t be fooled, the Aussie team led by Pat Cummins are desperate to win this game and would see it as a reward for their hard work and dominance in the Test game over the past few years.

In their way stand India led by Rohit Sharma, who have heaps of talent throughout their squad. The weather is set fair and the two teams are of the highest quality, so the game should be a genuine classic.

These two teams last faced each other in the Border-Gavaskar in February and March this year in India, where India won the series 2-1. Given how dominant India are at home, a 2-1 loss for Australia is actually a decent result for them, and playing at the Oval will be like playing on a different planet to playing at Nagpur.

Australia are slight favourites heading into the game, with odds of 10/11 with Bet365, while India are 15/8 to win.

A draw is unlikely given that there will be a 6th day added on if a result cant be achieved and the weather forecast looks pretty good for the next week, so the odds for that are 9/2.

What is fascinating about the World Test Championship final is we will be seeing two of the premier teams in world cricket playing each other and neither having any home advantage.

Both teams have reputations for being nearly impossible to beat on home soil, so playing in England could be a real equaliser.

The Indian team could be slightly undercooked here given the majority of the team have only just finished playing T20 cricket in the IPL, but the Australian team can hardly be blamed for over-preparing, given the fact they’ve mostly just played golf since getting here. 

The man nicknamed “The Prince” of Indian cricket - next in line to the title of King when Virat Kohli retires - Shubman Gill is having a completely insane year.

He was the top run-scorer in this year’s IPL, scoring 890 runs at an average of 59.33, including three hundreds, and has been firing in international cricket in 2023 with five tons in an India shirt this year already. 

Given how well this man is playing at the moment, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise for Gill to keep that form going on this big occasion and for him to score a big match-winning hundred and get the man of the match award here.

Despite the fact he’s barely ever played in England, it’s expected that Scott Boland has a big summer on English shores this year.

With Josh Hazlewood ruled out of the World Test Championship final, Boland will have to play and could be extremely important. 

He’s the most ‘English style’ seamer in the Aussie squad - not the quickest, but is deathly accurate, hits a trying length and nibbles it around just enough to ask the batsmen questions.

He should be very well suited to the Oval and the Indian middle order could struggle with him.