Daily Times

NEW DELHI: Ajinkya Rahane, who has not played a Test since January 2022, has been named in India’s 15-man squad for the upcoming World Test Championship final against Australia in June. Rahane, who made his Test debut in 2013, has been out of the red-ball side since the Cape Town Test against South Africa last year, where he made 9 and 1, capping off a poor run of form during a tour that saw him score just 136 runs from six innings. He was subsequently dropped for the following Test series against Sri Lanka, though Chetan Sharma, chairman of India’s selection committee at the time, said that the door wasn’t fully closed for Rahane to be picked again in the future.

Rahane, who was previously in the Grade B category in BCCI’s central contracts list, was not given a contract in the current cycle. In September, Rahane acknowledged that he had to “start from zero again” after recovering from his injuries, and was eyeing the domestic season to get in among the runs again. He subsequently ended as Mumbai’s leading scorer in the Ranji Trophy, with 634 runs from seven matches, including a double-century against Hyderabad, and 191 against Assam.

Rahane has also been in good touch for Chennai Super Kings in the ongoing IPL, slamming an unbeaten 71 against Kolkata Knight Riders last week. There were no other major surprises in India’s selections. Rohit Sharma will continue leading the team that has named six specialist batters in the squad, including Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul. There was no place for Shreyas Iyer and Jasprit Bumrah, who are both recovering from back injuries. The WTC final will be held between June 7 and 11 at the Oval, with a reserve day on June 12. India had booked their place in the final following a 2-1 series win at home against Australia earlier this year.

India squad: 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.