The BCCI made an announcement of the Indian side for the upcoming World Test Championship Final against Australia on Tuesday, which is scheduled to start on 7 June at The Oval, London. Indian middle order batter Ajinkya Rahane made a comeback in the squad after a long absence.
Not to mention Rahane, several other players have been surprisingly included in the side, like KS Bharat and Jaydev Unadkar.
The international career of Rahane was considered dead in all formats of the game, but the Mumbai batter came back strongly in the ongoing 2023 IPL. He changed his gear and has been scoring runs at a brisk pace for CSK. Currently, he has been scoring at a rate of 199.04, which is unusual for a player of the nature Rahane.
MS Dhoni, once his captain for Team India, showed faith in Rahane, saying that his old warhorse still has a lot of cricket left.
Bharat has been included in the team due to the absence of Rishabh Pant, who continues to recover after suffering a life-threatening injury in a car accident.
Australia has already unveiled the names of its squad for the WTC final.
Pat Cummins will lead the side after leaving the tour of India for personal reasons. Steve Smith took over the captaincy of the team in the absence of Cummins.
The inclusion of opener David Warner has surprised cricket pundits because his recent form has been patchy, but despite this, he is part of the team in the WTC final.
India’s Test squad WTC final: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, K L Rahul, KS Bharat (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat.