With India set to face Australia in the WTC final at the Oval from June 7-11, the Indian players will be heading to the UK in two to three departures in total.
After Royal Challengers Bangalore got knocked out of the ongoing IPL 2023, Kohli and Siraj will join the first batch of players. Spinners R Ashwin and Axar Patel, and all-rounder Shardul Thakur, will also be on the flight as well as the team’s support staff led by Rahul Dravid.
“There will be two or three departures in total. The first batch leaves at 4.30 am tomorrow,” said a BCCI source.
The players who will stay back in India for the IPL playoffs include skipper Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Shubman Gill, Mohammad Shami, K S Bharat and Ajinkya Rahane.
Cheteshwar Pujara is already playing county cricket in England.
While the majority of the Indian team players are going into the title clash after two months of IPL, only three WTC-bound Australians played in the richest T20 league.
Last week, the great Ricky Ponting said the Aussies will be mentally better prepared for the final but the Indians will have valuable game time behind them.
“There are two ways to look at this. For someone like Virat, is he better off playing now and scoring runs at a consistent basis and have confidence going into a game rather than the Australians back home who haven’t been playing much cricket but will be mentally better prepared,” Ponting had said.
India, who finished runners-up in 2021, will be aiming to win their first ICC trophy in 10 years.
(With inputs from PTI)
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