India will win comfortably if they play anywhere near their best: Paine on WTC final

Tim Paine is perhaps one of the very few captains who have truly felt the might and capabilities of the current Indian team. Pain has had a dubious distinction of losing back-to-back home Test series at home against the Indians.

The Australia Test captain has now predicted the winner of the inaugural World Test Championship (WTC) final, and not surprisingly he has put his money on Virat Kohli-led Indian team.

Paine’s assessment has come at a time when most of the experts have sided with New Zealand, terming the conditions and the fact that NZ have played a couple of Tests in England as factors benefiting Kane Williamson’s side.

"My prediction is, India will win pretty comfortably if they play anywhere near their best," Paine said at a press conference in Brisbane.

Paine had captained Australia against both New Zealand and India. While Australia beat the Kiwis 3-0 at home in 2019, they suffered a 1-2 defeat against India earlier this year.

Paine also reasoned that New Zealand’s recent victory in the Test against England came in a match when the hosts were without the services of some of their regulars.

"I think New Zealand are a good team, for one, and secondly if we're being realistic I think it's a really different team that we saw England out on the field to what we’re probably going to see in the Ashes… keeping it in perspective it certainly wasn’t England’s strongest team," he said.