India begin practice at The Oval for marquee clash against Australia

LONDON: Ahead of the World Test Championship final against Australia, the Indian Test team on Sunday commenced their practice session at The Oval. India will play Australia at The Oval in the much-awaited WTC final from June 7 to 11.

The BCCI shared the picture of the side hitting the ground running at the iconic venue. "Hello from the Oval," it said in a tweet.

On May 25, the BCCI had said via its official Twitter handle that Indian team members like Axar Patel, Umesh Yadav, Shardul Thakur along with head coach Rahul Dravid and other support staff members had begun practicing at the picturesque Arundel Castle Cricket Club in Arundel town.

On May 29, it shared pictures of talismanic batter Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Jaydev Unadkat, Mohammed Siraj and Ravichandran Ashwin engaged in practice and chats with support staff members at Arundel.

Skipper Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan and young Mumbai opener Yashasvi Jaiswal, a reserve player, joined the practice session from May 30. On the other hand, Ravindra Jadeja, Shubman Gill, Mohammad Shami, KS Bharat and Ajinkya Rahane linked up with the team on June 1 after featuring in the IPL final in Ahmedabad, followed by Mohammed Shami joining practice on June 2.

India, then led by Kohli, had finished as runners-up in the inaugural WTC cycle after losing the title clash to Kane Williamson's New Zealand by eight wickets at Rose Bowl in Southampton in 2021.

With Rohit set to captain the Test team on overseas soil for the first time, India will be aiming to go one step further through their second straight WTC final appearance against Australia at The Oval, who will be hosting a Test match in June for the very first time.

The final will mark the end of the second edition of the WTC, which was introduced in 2019 to add context to matches in the longest format of the game. The winners of the WTC Final will take home a purse of 1.6 million dollars while the losers will get 800,000 dollars.

India squad: 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, Umesh Yadav. (IANS)

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