WTC 2023: Virat Kohli to fly out for London with first batch of India players

Virat Kohli will be among the first batch of India players to leave for the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia in London, departing in the wee hours of Tuesday. Kohli's Royal Challengers Bangalore teammate Mohammad Siraj will also board the same flight, a day after their team was knocked out of the IPL. 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. The final will be played at the Oval from June 7-11.

"There will be two or three departures in total. The first batch leaves at 4.30 am tomorrow," said a BCCI source.

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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.

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India, who finished runners-up in 2021, will be aiming to win their first ICC trophy in 10 years.