'Best Team Selected': Ravi Shastri Impressed With India's Squad For World Test Championship Final

Former India head coach Ravi Shastri has given his verdict on the Indian squad for the World Test Championship Final against Australia which will be held from June 7-11 at the Oval, London. The BCCI announced the 15-man squad for the one-off Test match against Pat Cummins and Co. This will be India’s second attempt to get their hands on the WTC final trophy as earlier they suffered a defeat to New Zealand in the final of the inaugural edition.

Veteran batter Ajinkya Rahane has been recalled in the Test set-up after more than a year. He last played for India in January 2022. He was dropped from the side after accumulating 136 runs in six innings as India lost the series 2-1 against Proteas, Rahane was left out of the Test squad for the home series against Sri Lanka.

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The Asian Giants will miss the services of Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant and Jasprit Bumrah in the mega clash as the trio is still recovering from their respective injuries.

Shastri took to Twitter and said that the selectors have picked the best Indian team.

“Best Indian team selected. Well done selectors and team management #WTCFinal2023 #TeamIndia,” Shastri tweeted.

BCCI’s five-man selection panel, secretary Jay Shah along with skipper Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid met on Monday evening to decide on the squad.

Rahane’s comeback after 15 months was on predictable lines following Shreyas Iyer’s back injury that ruled him out of the grand finale. Iyer recently underwent a surgery in the UK to treat stress fractures in his lower back.

In the past year, Rahane has performed consistently well in the domestic circuit, he scored 50 runs in five innings, including an unbeaten 207 for West Zone. Meanwhile, in the Ranji Trophy, Rahane was Mumbai’s leading run-scorer with 634 runs from seven matches, including a double-century against Hyderabad, and 191 against Assam.

The rest of the squad led by Rohit Sharma was on predictable lines.

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KS Bharat is the only specialist wicketkeeper, while Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav, who were part of the home series against Australia, were dropped from the current squad.

India’s Test squad WTC final: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul, KS Bharat (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat