Team India squad members including 7 players including the likes of Virat Kohli and R Ashwin, one reserve, and 3 support bowlers will reportedly fly to the UK on Tuesday, May 23 to begin preparations for the upcoming ICC World Test Championship (WTC 2023) final at the Oval.   

India will play their second consecutive ICC WTC final, this time against Australia from June 7-11 in London.

The seven squad members include Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin, Akshar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, and Jaydev Unadkat. Understandably, all these cricketers, barring Unadkat, are from the six franchises whose Indian Premier League (IPL 2023) campaign ended in the league stage.

Sportstar has reported that Jaydev Unadkat, who suffered a shoulder injury during IPL 16 and was replaced by the Lucknow Super Giants and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) Umesh Yadav, who missed a few matches due to a niggle, have been passed fit by experts at the National Cricket Academy.

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Mukesh Kumar, the promising pacer who is among the reserves, will also travel as part of the first batch. He will be joined by three more pacers - Aniket Choudhary, Akash Deep, and Yarra Prithviraj - who have been selected as net bowlers by the national selection panel in consultation with the team management.

Cheteshwar Pujara, participating in the County Championship, will join the preparations later this week.

Apart from this, captain Rohit Sharma, whose Mumbai Indians qualified for the IPL 2023 playoffs will join the squad later. This means head coach Rahul Dravid will have to lead the preparation phase.

The remaining members of the 15-member squad along with reserves Suryakumar Yadav and Ruturaj Gaikwad are expected to leave for London on May 29, the night after the IPL final.

(Sportstar inputs)