Rohit Sharma injury scare for India ahead of WTC final

Team India will be without big names like Jasprit Bumrah, Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul in the World Test Championship (WTC) final and to make things even more worrying skipper Rohit Sharma sustained an injury during a net session. While batting in the nets, during India’s optional practice session, Rohit was hit on his left thumb on Tuesday. Physio Kamlesh reportedly attended Rohit straightaway. The Indian captain tried to carry forward his training but he had to stop eventually. There is no official word on the severity of his injury but the 36-year-old was forced to get bandaged. According to some reports, Rohit underwent medical surveillance after dealing with the blow.

After conceding a defeat in the maiden WTC final against New Zealand, the Indian cricket team will be determined to go one step forward this time. Rohit Sharma’s men will take on Australia in the showpiece event, scheduled to start today at the Kennington Oval in London. Ahead of the game against the Aussies, Rohit admitted that conditions in England will certainly be challenging for the batters.

“England, in general, is pretty challenging conditions for the batters, but as long as you are prepared to have a good grind you can have some success as a batter. One thing I realised batting here was you are never in actually, because the weather keeps changing a lot. So you've got to keep concentrating for longer periods of time and that is the challenge of this format. You'll get that intuition when it is your time to take the bowlers on and that is when you should be ready for it,” Rohit Sharma was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Multiple big names like Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohammad Shami and Mohammed Siraj did not attend Team India’s practice session yesterday. Ravichandran Ashwin, Umesh Yadav and KS Bharat were among the ones who turned up for the optional training session.

Meanwhile, Australia will miss the services of pacer Josh Hazlewood in the WTC final. Hazlewood was ruled out of the competition owing to a side strain. Michael Nesser replaced Hazlewood in the Aussie squad.