Australia and South Africa face off in the third World Test Championship Final, which will be held at Lord’s for the first time. Former England cricketer Monty Panesar tells The Indian Express which bowler among both sides is more suited to make the best use of the famous Lord’s slope, how the conditions are different this time around at the venue because of the dry spell across the country and his pick among the captains Pat Cummins and Temba Bavuma.
How do conditions play in the Lord’s generally? And how does its famous slope play out?
It helps the seamers a lot, especially with the overcast conditions. Expect the ball to seam and swing. Using the slope is something that a lot of fast bowlers have done well.
When you’re looking to seam the ball away from the batsman, it kind of just straightens and batters tend play inside of the line, getting the outside edge. You can use the slope to get seam movement and the angle.
Who do you think can exploit the slope at Lord’s to their advantage?
Josh Hazlewood would be effective on this slope, perfect conditions for him. He is the key man. Similar to Glen McGrath’s style. McGrath used the slope well. All you have to do is get that ball to straighten and it tends not to bounce as much of length – so you get LBWs bowled a lot. Someone like Hazlewood could do that. As a batter would be worried about the ball coming in and then suddenly, all it does is straighten a little bit and makes it – a LBW, bowled, caught slip. Hazlewood could be very dangerous on that pitch.
Which bowler from South Africa do you think can exploit that slope better?
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Rabada would be a good one if he pitches the ball up a little bit because he bowls back of the length generally. If he can pitch it up a little bit more, then maybe you’ll get an opportunity to do that.
Both Nathan Lyon and Keshav Maharaj are experienced campaigners. How effective do you think they will be?
They are going to have similar roles probably. Lyon will be bowling it slightly quicker than Maharaj, but they bowl kind of similar lines, wicket to wicket, very attacking. Lyon will probably go around the wicket, use that angle quite effectively against the right-handers. Maharaj can get that ball to hang in the air slightly longer than you expect. I hope he has a good shape on the ball because, he could be quite effective against Australia at Lord’s because the odd one turns.
It has been a very dry summer in England. June tends to be still an early cricketing season, but how will the heat affect the wicket for this one-off game?
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With the dry surfaces, you may not get as much pace on the pitch. So, having fielders in front of the square, would be quite effective for the fast bowlers. The edges may not be coming after the ball gets old, so maybe they have to adjust the field set. They may also have to go to the short-ball strategy and actually, have a leg slip, a short leg. You may not get the natural catches in the second or third slip because of the lack of pace from the Lord’s pitch and you have to find other ways of getting the wickets.
How will the Dukes ball play out, it’s not been as bowler friendly in recent times, right?
Yeah, what’s happening down to the simple reason they have got new balls manufactured, and those don’t hold their shape very long. It’s happening in county cricket as well. A lot of balls have been changed after the 30th over because they go out of shape. And because of that, it hasn’t really helped the bowlers so much.
Neither South Africa nor Australia has played Test cricket for a while now. How should both sides adapt here?
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Australians are going to be more suited to the seam and bouncing pitches; they may have to adjust slightly to the lower bounce. Their batsmen are more effective on the cuts and the pulls and here they might have to find scoring options off the front foot. Both teams are coming from bouncier pitches, and the batting team that adjusts to the lower bounce and the English conditions will probably have a better chance of winning the Test match.
Both Pat Cummins and Temba Bavuma have been in their captaincy roles for a while now. Who do you think is tactically more astute?
Probably Pat Cummins is slightly more tactically ahead because he’s just played more Test matches. But Bavuma is very good strategically as he has been able to enforce results for South Africa despite the limited number of Test matches that they play. This WTC could be the making of Bavuma if he gets his tactics absolutely spot-on against Australia. He can’t let the game drift, he will have to take the game on to the Australians.
Who will you pick as the winner?
Australia, obviously, are the favourites but I hope South Africa win because we often talk about the big three (India, England and Australia) and it’s nice to see another team winning. We don’t talk much about someone like Bavuma when it comes to captaincy leadership; he’s quite an unassuming sort of background guy. It would be a wonderful cricketing story for the world to see that, well, here’s a team like South Africa that plays less Test matches compared to India, Australia and England but has won the WTC. Hopefully then the ICC will think on how to get the countries that play less Test cricket to play more.
