‘Impact player’: This is how Virat Kohli praises David Warner ahead of WTC final

LONDON: India’s star batter Virat Kohli has praised Australian batsman David Warner ahead of the World Test Championship (WTC) final starting on Wednesday at the Oval, London.

In a video posted by ICC, Virat called Warner an “Impact player” for Australia. He said that when Warner gets going then it is difficult to stop him as he does not make many mistakes.

“Virat Kohli knows the impact David Warner can have in a big match,” the ICC Twitter handle captioned the video.

“Impact player. When David gets going, he can take the game away from you pretty quickly. He’s someone that you probably look to get out pretty quickly otherwise he can hurt you very early and consistently. He seems to have this zone that he gets into where he just starts hitting boundaries and doesn’t stop and he doesn’t make many mistakes in that space,” Virat said to ICC.

“He has always played impactful innings for Australia across formats and test cricket as well he’s had some amazing innings that he had played for the Australian team and is certainly a very dangerous player and someone that you need to get rid of pretty quickly.

The 36-year-old scored just 95 runs in five Tests at 9.5 during the 2019 Ashes tour and has struggled at times over the previous two years, recording just one century – his epic 200 on Boxing Day last summer – and 18 scores of 15 or less in 32 innings.

However, Warner was in action in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 where he scored 516 runs in 14 matches. he had an average of 36.86 and a strike rate of 131.63 in the season. He was not at his best but these runs will give him confidence ahead of a big final.

India’s squad for WTC final: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, KS Bharat (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Ishan Kishan (wk).

Standby players: Suryakumar Yadav, Mukesh Kumar and Yashasvi Jaiswal

Australia squad for WTC final: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wk), Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy, Michael Neser, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, David Warner

Standby players: Mitch Marsh, and Matthew Renshaw. (ANI)