The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced a 15-member India squad for the ICC World Test Championship final set to be staged at the Oval in London from June 7-11 on Tuesday (April 25). The Rohit Sharma-led squad was largely along expected lines but the major highlight was the return of Ajinkya Rahane back into the Test setup. In addition, Suryakumar Yadav was axed from the side. Former India head coach Ravi Shastri, however, feels that the best team was selected for the summit clash against Australia.
Shastri, who is currently part of the English commentary panel in IPL 2023, took to Twitter to share his views on India's WTC Final squad. "Best Indian team selected. Well done selectors and team management 🇮🇳 #WTCFinal2023 #TeamIndia," he tweeted.
Notably, this will be India's second successive World Test Championship final appearance after the Men in Blue had also played the inaugural WTC final against New Zealand. Interestingly, it was Shastri who was the head coach of the team back then with Virat Kohli at the affairs as the captain. The duo, however, failed to lead India to a win and India finished as the runners up with BlackCaps emerging as the champions of the first-ever WTC.
This time around the team will be led by Rohit Sharma with Rahul Dravid as the head coach of the side. The team features KS Bharat as the only specialist wicketkeeper of the side with some experts mulling a possibility of going with KL Rahul as a keeper in the Playing 11 to strengthen the batting.
India have added three spinning all-rounders in Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel. However, in all probability only one or at the most two may secure a place in the final Playing 11. With Jasprit Bumrah still far from being match fit, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav and Jaydev Unadkat are the specialist pacers in the squad with Shardul Thakur giving them an option of a seam-bowling all-rounder.