Rahane back in Indian team for WTC final, Suryakumar and Kuldeep dropped

New Delhi: Ajinkya Rahane, who has added a dash of aggression to his batting style, made a comeback to the Indian team on Tuesday for the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia as the BCCI announced a 15-man squad for the one-off contest.

The WTC final will be played in London at the Oval from June 7 to 11.

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.

That Rahane was in contention was reported by PTI in its report on April 10.

Rahane last played a Test in January 2022 against South Africa in Cape Town.

His selection has more to do with carrying enough experienced batters in the line-up as Indian teams have had their share of struggles abroad during one off games like these.

The 34-year-old, who led Mumbai during entire domestic season, scored nearly 700 runs but what stood out was how he has improved his attacking game in the IPL and is looking more purposeful than ever before with a strike-rate of 190 in seven games so far.

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

However, there is no designated vice captain for the WTC final although it is expected that Chesteshwar Pujara, who was Sharma’s deputy in the last two Test matches against Australia at home, would be asked to do the job again.

Pujara is currently leading Sussex in the English County Championship.

KS Bharat is the only specialist wicketkeeper in the 15-man squad, while young Kishan, Kuldeep and Suryakumar lost their place in the squad.

Since it is a one-off game, the selectors may not have found it logical to have a second keeper in the side. There is every chance that the team management might try struggling KL Rahul not only as a middle order batter but also as a keeper and Rahane could play as an extra batter.

Suryakumar could feel hard done by as he got to play only one Test which isn’t an indicator of a cricketer’s long format abilities but Sharma and Dravid wanted more experience in the batting department.

There are at least four bowling all-rounders in the squad including Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel and Shardul Thakur.