Australia wicketkeeper batter Alex Carey believes in his team's preparations for next month's World Test Championship (WTC) final, having faced the same opponents during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) against India earlier in 2023. The WTC Final is scheduled to take place from June 7-11 at The Oval in London.
Both teams have chosen not to go into the game without playing a warm-up game and this decision can only be spoken of in hindsight.
Following the WTC Final, Australia will stay back in the UK for the five-Test Ashes against England, which will start on June 16.
"The guys have all gone away and had individual programs over this (recent) period. We have had guys playing cricket here in England. The guys at the IPL and some guys at home spending some time there," Carey was quoted as saying by ICC.
"Coming together now we really feel the excitement heading into the Test Championship and I think it will be a hindsight thing about whether or not we should have played a warm-up match. As a player, I feel like we will be ready come to that first match so I think it will be one of the things talked about after the Test match."
Ready from WTC Final after Border-Gavaskar Trophy
Despite losing the series 2-1, Australia did well to bounce back from their losses in the first two Tests of the series. Their only win in the four-Test series was on a rank-turner in Indore and the Baggy Greens have taken heart from such a pitch.
"We learned a lot... to be able to bounce back (from two-nil down) to win in Indore (in the third Test) showed a lot of character, and then the last Test was a draw. So we walked away with a bit of confidence, knowing we were good enough in those conditions and there were just a few areas we would've liked to have cleaned up... and now the grand final is here; this is what the last two years have led to.
"We'll wait and see what The Oval looks like too — there might be some grass on it, it might be dry — but it's a pretty special opportunity to play in a 'grand final', so to speak, and obviously the Ashes is just around the corner, too," he concluded.
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