The Indian cricket team is all set to embark on their tour of England, where they will take part in the historic World Test Championship final, the first of its kind, from June 18 against New Zealand.
The final at the Rose Bowl stadium in Southampton will be the culmination of a long process for Virat Kohli and his team, where they have dominated all the teams at home and played competitive cricket away in their tours abroad.
Speaking to the media through a virtual press conference before they leave for UK, Indian captain Virat Kohli and head coach Ravi Shastri spoke about the importance of the WTC final and what it means for the team.
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“See it is the first time that you have a World Test Championship final. When you look at that and the magnitude of the game that is going to be played, I think this is the biggest, if not the biggest-ever. It is the toughest format of the game, it is a format that tests you. It has not happened over the three months, it has happened over two years where teams have played each other across the world and earned their right to play in the finals. It is one hell of an event,” Shastri said.
Kohli said that the team takes a lot of pride in playing Test cricket and reaching the WTC final is a testament of that.
“I agree. I think this holds a lot of value, especially this being the first of its kind. It is the toughest format as Ravi Bhai mentioned. We take a lot of pride in playing Test cricket and the way we have progressed as a side is an example of what Test cricket means to us. So for all of us as a unit, this is like an accumulation of all the hard work of the last five-six years where we started to come up the ranks as a side and we are just happy to take the opportunity to play the finals,” Kohli said.
The Indian Men’s team will arrive in the UK on June 3, 2021, via a charter flight with negative PCR Test,” ICC said in an official release.
New Zealand are taking on England in a two-Test series starting June 2nd before they play the WTC Final.
India will take on England in a 5-match Test series after the WTC final is played.
