Given Pujara’s knowledge and experience as a captain (at Sussex), his contributions could prove invaluable, especially against Australian batter Steve Smith, who is also part of his district team.

The WTC Finals will be held at the Oval Stadium in London from June 7-11.

The fact that he was around means he also saw how the field at the Oval behaves.

He may not be playing at the Oval, he may be in Sussex, not that far from London, but he will be watching what happens, and his contribution will be invaluable as far as batting or even captaincy is concerned, Gavaskar told Star Sports.

He’ll have captains here as far as Oval’s pitch is concerned, and don’t forget that he was also team captain, so he’s definitely developed a lot of strategies, given that Australian Steve Smith is now his teammate.

Gavaskar also said that Indian batters coming out of the IPL will have to adapt their batting speed before the WTC finals, and advised them to play as late as possible.

I think they will be looking at their batting speed. Going from T20, where the bat speed is very fast, to Test cricket, where the bat speed has to be much more controlled, that’s what they will have to do, Gavaskar told Star Sports.

He also stressed that in English conditions, batters need to play as late as possible, giving them an opportunity to swing and avoid the mistake of reaching for the ball.

They will need to play in England as late as possible to allow the swing to do its thing, rather than reaching for the ball, which is often a mistake many people make when playing good pitches.

Wherever you play good serves, you tend to play the line, not necessarily half volleys, but in England those serves can shift a bit. So I think those are things you have to keep an eye on as a batter. He asked the bowlers to play longer pitches to allow Dukes’ ball to swing.

You, as a bowling team, will also need to pitch a new longer ball so bowlers can get movement in the air and after pitching. Gavaskar emphasized the difficulties India would face when playing in English conditions.

I think English conditions are difficult because, first of all, we are used to lying with the sun on our backs. When you play in England, you often play in conditions where there’s no sun, not muchIt’s overcast, the weather is a little cooler, so you sometimes wear a sweater.

It’s something that Indian players, players from the West Indies and Sri Lanka aren’t really used to, so it might just be a little dampener, a little light, but you just feel a little burdened by it.

So, that’s one thing, and because in those conditions the ball tends to swing in the air, not just after the serve, which is not the case in India, and so swinging in the air is something that sometimes takes some time to get used to … and that’s the reason why people usually advise when you go overseas to play two or three warm-up matches, which gives you a better idea of what’s waiting for you during the test match, he added.