India captain Virat Kohli led his side to another Test series victory at home on Saturday (March 6). Team India secured an easy victory over England by an innings and 25 runs to win the four-match series.
India's series win by the margin of 3-1 was enough to secure their place in the World Test Championship (WTC) final. They will face New Zealand in the final which will be played from June 18-22 this year.
Kohli said the team is relieved after qualifying for the WTC final as India deserved to be there. “Well, we are quite relieved now that we have made it to the WTC final. Probably, if you look at the last 2-2.5 years and how we have played, we deserve to be in the finals.
"Now, it’s just about getting together as a group and focusing on that big game which is quite exciting for us as a team,” said Kohli in a video posted on the official website of BCCI.
India's vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane credited every member for the team's success and expressed his happiness over the performance they have put even before the World Test Championship.
“I think the way we came back as a team, each and every individual stepped up. Credit to everyone, I think everyone hung in there. It is all about the team, we always speak about how we can contribute to the team and that’s what we did.
I am really happy as an individual and as a vice-captain. Our journey in not only the WTC, but before that as well, we played really well.”
The senior cricketer Rohit Sharma congratulated the Team India members for a place in the WTC final. He said the team fought in every tough situation to reach on top.
“A big congratulations to every team member and the staff for making it to the final. It has been a long journey since the WTC started, we played well in India and we played outside India as well. We were put in difficult situations many times and we responded well to those situations that is why we stand here in the finals of the WTC. We deserve to be in the finals of the WTC,” said Rohit.
India is at number one in the WTC points table with 72.2 percentage points. They were in a comfortable position to reach the final but a change to the points system after the COVID-19 pandemic complicated their chances.
They had to win the Test series against England by at least a margin of 2-1 to qualify. Australia finished third with 69.2 percentage points while England ended with 61.4 percentage points at the fourth position.
(With ANI Inputs)
