WTC final: Rahane ‘getting the basics right’ ahead of summit clash

Southampton: India Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane is getting the “basics right” ahead of the much-awaited World Test Championships (WTC) final against New Zealand which gets underway from Friday.

Rahane on Monday shared a video in which he can be seen hitting the ball right off the meat of the bat. The vice-captain is training for the WTC final and is leaving no stone unturned to gear up for the clash.

“Getting the basics right ahead of the game,” Rahane captioned the video on Twitter.

The Indian side is currently playing an intra-squad game in Southampton.

The Indian cricket team had landed in Southampton on June 3 and after that, every member of the touring contingent underwent three days of mandatory hard quarantine.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand team will also be subjected to regular testing post-arrival in Southampton.

The winners of the WTC final between India and New Zealand will take home a purse of USD 1.6 million along with the ICC Test Championship Mace.

The losing team will get USD 800,000 for finishing second in the nine-team competition, which was played over a near two-year cycle, adding context to Test cricket and to crown the first official world champions in the longest format of the game.

The prize money for the team finishing third in the ICC World Test Championship Standings is USD 450,000. The team fourth on the table will be awarded USD 350,000, the one that finishes fifth gets USD 200,000 while the remaining four teams will get USD 100,000 each.