Kohli among first batch of players to leave for WTC final
New Delhi (PTI): Virat Kohli will be among the first batch of India players to leave for the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia in London, departing in the wee hours of Tuesday.
Kohli's Royal Challengers Bangalore teammate Mohammad Siraj will also board the same flight, a day after their team was knocked out of the IPL. Spinners R Ashwin and Axar Patel, and all-rounder Shardul Thakur, will also be on the flight as well as the team's support staff led by Rahul Dravid.
The final will be played at the Oval from June 7-11.
"There will be two or three departures in total. The first batch leaves at 4.30 am tomorrow," said a BCCI source.
The players who will stay back in India for the IPL playoffs include skipper Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Shubman Gill, Mohammad Shami, K S Bharat and Ajinkya Rahane.
Cheteshwar Pujara is already playing county cricket in England.
While the majority of the Indian team players are going into the title clash after two months of IPL, only three WTC-bound Australians played in the richest T20 league.
Last week, the great Ricky Ponting said the Aussies will be mentally better prepared for the final but the Indians will have valuable game time behind them.
"There are two ways to look at this. For someone like Virat, is he better off playing now and scoring runs at a consistent basis and have confidence going into a game rather than the Australians back home who haven't been playing much cricket but will be mentally better prepared," Ponting had said.
India, who finished runners-up in 2021, will be aiming to win their first ICC trophy in 10 years.
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Chadha, others wouldn't have left AAP had it followed 'right' path: Anna Hazare
Mumbai (PTI): Social activist Anna Hazare has said Raghav Chadha and six other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha members would not have quit the party had it followed the "right" path.
"Everyone has the right to hold an opinion in a democracy. They (Chadha and others) must have faced some trouble, which is why they left," Hazare told reporters on Friday in Ahilyanagar district of Maharashtra.
AAP Rajya Sabha members Raghav Chadha and Sandeep Pathak addressed a joint press conference in Delhi on Friday, announcing their exit from the Arvind Kejriwal-led party to join the BJP.
Chadha claimed that nearly two-thirds of AAP's Rajya Sabha members had quit the party and would function as a separate faction.
"It is their (AAP leadership’s) fault. Had that party followed the right way, they would not have left," Hazare said.
Hazare reiterated that Chadha and others must have faced difficulties within AAP, and that is why they left. "Had the party gone in the right direction, they would not have quit the party," he added.
"There must be some or the other reason (for their leaving AAP). In a democracy, every person has a view about where to stay and leave," Hazare said.
The Chadha-led exodus marks a significant setback for the Kejriwal-led party since its formation in 2012, which followed the momentum of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement.
