[Watch] Virat Kohli & Co. sweat it out ahead of WTC final
Virat Kohli and other members of the Indian squad were seen hitting the gym on Monday (May 31) ahead of their World Test Championship (WTC) clash against New Zealand. The inaugural Test championship final against is set to take place in Southampton on June 18.
The BCCI took to Twitter to post a clip of the players training ahead of the WTC final. In the 38-second clip, the likes of Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajinkya Rahane, and Mayank Agarwal can be seen working out in the gym.
The full video spanning two minutes and 10 seconds is available on the BCCI website. Talking about their training, Soham Desai, the strength and conditioning coach of the Indian team said the following about preparing for the WTCfinal.
"Both Nick (Webb) and I feel the players have benefitted from the gap to take rest. They have had a long year from last IPL to this. What we did was, first we asked them to rest, just take some time off, spend some time with family and just relax. Slowly, we started building them towards what they actually need to do."
Following the WTC final against New Zealand, Team India will play a five-match Test series against England, which starts on August 4.
Ahead of the tour, Mayank Agarwal shed light on staying fit during the pandemic in an exclusive interview with Sportskeeda.
"To be honest, when there was a lockdown, initially, last year in March, we didn't know when we were going to play again or when things would open up. The thought behind staying fit is that if you can create a routine for day-to-day life and have a strict fitness schedule, it's only going to help you because you don't just do fitness just for a particular tour," said Agarwal.
India squad for the WTC final and the England series:
Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (Captain), Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain), Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), R. Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, Mohd. Shami, Md. Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, KL Rahul (subject to fitness clearance), Wriddhiman Saha (wicket-keeper; subject to fitness clearance).
Standby players:
Abhimanyu Easwaran, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Arzan Nagwaswalla