WTC Final, IND vs AUS: Is Team India under pressure to win an ICC Trophy? Rahul Dravid opens up
Ahead of the WTC Final between India and Australia, coach Rahul Dravid has opened up about the team's ICC title drought, Ajinkya Rahane's comeback, Cheteshwar Pujara's role and more.
FollowAlthough India hasn't claimed an ICC championship in ten years, head coach Rahul Dravid stated on Monday that his squad isn't under any pressure as it prepares to face Australia in the World Test Championship final. The former India captain, however, acknowledged that it would be good to take home the trophy because his side has been working towards it for the past two years.
India has a history of struggling in knockout games, as evidenced by their loss to New Zealand in the inaugural WTC final in 2021.
"No, not at all. I mean we don't feel any pressure in terms of trying to win an ICC trophy. Of course it would be nice to do it. It would be certainly nice to be able to win an ICC tournament. But also in the context of things, you look at this and you see this is the culmination of two years of work," Dravid said.
"It's a culmination of a lot of success that gets you here. So there's a lot of positives to take from that to see where you stand on the table. Winning series in Australia, drawing series here, being very competitive everywhere that this team has played in the world over the last five or six years. I think those are things that will never change just because you have or you don't have an ICC trophy. That's really the bigger picture," the  batting legend added.
Ajinkya Rahane is about to play his first Test match in 18 months, and a loss could probably spell the end of his career. Dravid offered the seasoned batter some guidance.
"Firstly it's good to have him. We've had a few injuries which have probably led to him having the opportunity to come back into the squad. Great for us to have someone of his quality back. He brings obviously a lot of that experience, he brings proven performance in overseas conditions. Even in England he's played some terrific innings for us. He brings terrific catching in the slips as well to the group. He just brings his personality to the group as well which is really important. He's led the team to considerable success. And again, I wouldn't want him to approach this as just a one-off," Dravid noted.
"Sometimes you get dropped from teams and you make a comeback and you can play for as long as you're playing well and as long as you're performing. It's not written in stone or rule that you only get one match. He puts in a good performance, really shows what he's got. Who knows, even when people come back from injury, you never know what can happen. So again, from my point of view, it's not really only about this match. Yes this match is important but then in the larger context of things there's a lot of cricket to be played further down the road as well," he added.
Over the past several years, Cheteshwar Pujara has amassed a tonne of runs in county cricket in England. He was scoring runs for Sussex while his colleagues were competing in the IPL.
"We've had conversations with Pujee - about captaincy, about obviously batting, but also he leads Sussex. So he's also got a good handle on things in terms of the kind of tactics and the strategy that's used by a lot of the county bowlers that he's played with. So we've had some conversations and discussions obviously with him in and around that and we'll see how we can maybe incorporate some of that. Doesn't drastically change some of the basics of the game. They always remain the same," said Dravid.
Talking about the conditiong at The Oval, Dravid stated, "We just have to react to what we see in terms of the conditions and how it plays out in the middle. And hopefully we have the resources and the ability to deal with whatever comes in front of us."
With so few nations committed to Test cricket, franchise cricket has put the future of the five-day game in danger. Dravid believes that the more of the conventional format there is, the better.
"I really hope that, because of things like the World Test Championship when you have some context to a lot of these, to a lot of the bilateral games, not that - honestly, not that they don't have context in itself," Dravid said.
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"I mean, anytime you play for your country, play against someone else, there's always context, there's always - you always want to win those series. But you know, really hope that it will encourage a lot more teams to be able to potentially play a lot more Test cricket or to be able to find a way to play a lot more Test cricket," he added.
"I know it is complicated and that it's hard to go into depth in a press conference and there are a variety of reasons why that is probably not happening, both in terms of time, finances, there are many things that go into it. But certainly, we'd like to see a lot more Test cricket - personally at least, I'd like to see a lot more Test cricket being played," he noted.
