Ajinkya Rahane returns after 15 months as BCCI announces squad for World Test Championship

Cricketer Ajinkya Rahane returned to the Indian squad following a stellar run in IPL 2023 as BCCI announced a 15-man Indian squad for the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia.

The final against Australia will be played at the Oval in England from June 7 this year.

Besides Rahane, KL Rahul also returned to the squad after he was dropped from the last two Tests of the Australia series.

Coming back to Rahane, he has returned to the Indian side after 15 months and he last featured in the South Africa Test series in January 2022.

As per reports, it is being believed that Rahane's form for CSK in IPL forced the selectors to pick him for the WTC.

In the IPL, Rahane scored 209 runs in just five innings for CSK at a stagger strike rate of 199.05 which is 62 more than his previous beast in 2019. 

The other obvious reason is the absence of middle-order batter Shreyas Iyer and wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant.

Iyer has undergone back surgery and is expected to be out of action for sometime. On the other hand, Pant has started his slow recovery process after suffering a car accident in December last year.

Surprisingly, there was no place for Surya Kumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan.

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, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat.

Also read: MS Dhoni hints at retirement, says 'its the last phase of my career'