WTC Final Team Announced: Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul Return, Suryakumar Yadav Left Out

Ajinkya Rahane makes his Team India return for the World Test Championship final against Australia. Suryakumar Yadav, on the other hand, has not been included. Rahane, a veteran of 82 Test matches, last played for India in the longest format of the game in January last year. WTC Final Team Announced: Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul Return, Suryakumar Yadav Left Out.

Since then, Rahane was not considered for selection owing to poor form. However, having done well in domestic cricket and the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 for Chennai Super Kings (CSK), the 34-year-old made his way back. Aggressive batter Suryakumar Yadav, spinner Kuldeep Yadav and young stumper-batter Ishan Kishan, who were all part of the home series against Australia, have been dropped for the contest.

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.

With Iyer out injured, the selection committee decided to hand the veteran Rahane a recall. The experienced batter had become the talk of the town in the Indian cricketing spectrum because of his superlative show with the bat in the IPL for CSK.

In the season so far, Rahane has aggregated a whopping 209 runs at an average of 52.25. These runs have come at an exceptional strike-rate of 199.04. He sits third in the list of top-scorers in the league at present.

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India squad for WTC final against Australia: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.