Only Four Indians In Ricky Ponting's Combined India-Australia Test XI. No Shubman Gill Or Ravichandran Ashwin

Ricky Ponting has selected his Combined Test XI from the Australia and India squads ahead of the ICC World Test Championship final which will be held on June 7 in Oval in England. Australia legend Ricky Ponting has turned to recent form over reputation when picking a combined XI from the two teams set to clash in the ICC World Test Championship final. Ponting firstly selected an opener from each team with a left-right combination as Rohit Sharma and Usman Khawaja were named at the top of the order on the ICC Review podcast.

The former Australia skipper identified Rohit as the player to captain the combined Test XI due to his extensive experience as a leader, although Pat Cummins is still seen as integral to Ponting's line-up.

"I'll start with Usman Khawaja. His last couple of years, whether it has been in Australia or away, have been outstanding at the top of the order," Ponting said on the ICC Review podcast.

"Almost since he's been picked back in the Australian team, he hasn't put a foot wrong. The older he is getting, the better he is getting.

"I'm going left hand-right hand, so I'll go for Rohit Sharma as the other opener. He's not just entirely form-based either. I wanted him to be captain of the side.

"Pat Cummins, I'll mention him later, he'll be in this side, but just from the experience point of view with Rohit, he's obviously been captain a lot longer than Pat has, so I thought he deserved to be the captain of this team."

Rohit led India to their 2-1 Test series victory on home soil over Australia earlier this year and set the tone with a hard-fought century in the opening match in Nagpur.

The 36-year-old went on to finish this year's Border-Gavaskar Trophy series with 242 runs at an average of 40.33.

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