WTC Final 2023: India’s team begins preparations at the Oval Cricket Ground for their summit match against Australia

JE Sports Desk: The BCCI (Board of Cricket Control in India) posted a photo on their official social media account to celebrate the start of practise for the World Test Championship semifinal matchup in London, England, versus Australia.

The BCCI posted a photo of the team kicking off play at the storied location. The message said, “Hello from the Oval,” in a tweet.

Axar Patel, Umesh Yadav, Shardul Thakur, the Indian team’s head coach Rahul Dravid, and other support staff members have started practising at the scenic Arundel Castle Cricket Club in Arundel town on May 25, the BCCI said through its official Twitter account.

On May 29, it published images of talismanic players Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Jaydev Unadkat, Mohammed Siraj, and Ravichandran Ashwin interacting with support workers at Arundel as they were practising and talking.

Starting on May 30, the practise session was joined by the captain Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, and the youthful Mumbai opener Yashasvi Jaiswal, a reserve player. On the other hand, after their participation in the IPL final in Ahmedabad, Ravindra Jadeja, Shubman Gill, Mohammad Shami, KS Bharat, and Ajinkya Rahane joined the squad on June 1. Mohammed Shami then started practising on June 2.

 

After losing the championship match against Kane Williamson’s New Zealand by eight wickets at Rose Bowl in Southampton in 2021, India, then captained by Kohli, came in second place in the first WTC cycle.

India will be seeking to go further via their second consecutive WTC final appearance against Australia at The Oval, who will be hosting a Test match in June for the very first time, with Rohit poised to skipper the Test squad on foreign territory.

 

The second iteration of the WTC, which was launched in 2019 to provide context for matches in the game’s longest format, will come to an end with the final. The prize pool for the WTC Final will be worth 1.6 million dollars to the victors and 800,000 dollars to the losers.

Rohit Sharma (captain), Ravichandran Ashwin, KS Bharat, Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja, Virat Kohli, Ishan Kishan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Axar Patel, Ajinkya Rahane, Mohammad Shami, Mohammad Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Jaydev Unadkat, and Umesh Yadav are the other members of the India team.

Yashasvi Jaiswal, Mukesh Kumar, and Suryakumar Yadav are the reserves.