WTC Final 2023: In the cricketing history across the formats, the men in blue side have been good and the prime example of that is they have been the only team to reach the finals of the World Test Championship twice in a row.
In 2021, India played against The Kiwis and this time, the men in blue are facing Australia in London.
One more fact about the Indian Cricket Team also amazes us is that the Team has a solid bench strength and due to that India can take the field in two formats at the same time.
The solid bench strength is because of a tournament like the Indian Premier League and largely domestic cricket has also helped the players to be in good shape.
India hasn’t created the players as one format specialist. But due to the IPL and the matches of the domestic cricket tournaments, now the players have become the specialist in all three formats of the game, which has been an incredible strength of the men in blue side in the recent past and many times it has caused a headache to the selectors while picking the squad for a series of an ICC tournament.
India’s bench strength is so strong that they can play the matches even if the main and star players are busy with other matches, series or if they are not available.
Now one team is in England for the Ultimate Test match against The Aussies at Kennington Oval in London. This WTC Final 2023 match started yesterday and it should end on Sunday, 11th June 2023. But if the rain comes, then this red ball game will go on the reserve day which is fixed on Monday, 12th June 2023.
Despite the stars studded players like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Ravindra Jadeja, Shubman Gill, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel and many more players of the Indian Cricket Team are in England still, one team can play the matches of One Day International and T20 International format at the same time.
When India went for the 2021 World Test Championship at Southampton, another Indian team led by Shikhar Dhawan toured Sri Lanka at the same time.
This happened for the first ever time in cricketing history where two teams of the same country have toured two different counties at the same time and India is the only team to achieve this feat till now.
India can do this even now. One team can even play a full fleshed limited overs series when the other team is busy in England.
On that tour in 2021 to Sri Lanka, India won the three-match One Day International series by a margin of 2-1. But at the same, Shikhar Dhawan also became the first and only Indian skipper to lose a T20 International series against Sri Lanka by that same margin of 2-1.
The players who are not in the team for the WTC Final against Australia can take part in the limited-overs series. After this Ultimate Test Match, the men in blue side will play a three-match ODI series against Afghanistan and in that many of the star players who represented the team in the WTC final will not be included.
Hardik Pandya is the leader of the limited-overs format team in the absence of the senior players.
The playing XI might look like this for India – Hardik Pandya(c), Sanju Samson(wk), Deepak Hooda, Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Deepak Chahar, Kuldeep Yadav/Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik and Avesh Khan/Mohit Sharma.
