World Test Championship Final: Pressure? What pressure!

London, June 5

India may not have won an ICC title in 10 years, but head coach Rahul Dravid has insisted that his team is not feeling any pressure going into the World Test Championship final against Australia, beginning on Wednesday. However, the former India captain said it would be ‘nice’ to win the trophy as it is something his team has worked towards over the last two years.

India lost the inaugural WTC final to New Zealand in 2021 and have been guilty of faltering in knockout games.

Asked if his team was under pressure, Dravid said: “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 see this is the culmination of two years of work.”

“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,” the coach said. “Winning the series in Australia, drawing the series here, being very competitive everywhere that this team has played 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.”

Rahane’s return

Ajinkya Rahane is set to play his first Test in 18 months and a failure in the game could potentially be career-ending, but Dravid had a word of advice for the experienced batter.

“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,” the coach said. “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. He just brings his personality, which is really important. He’s led the team to considerable success,” he added. “I wouldn’t want him to approach this as just a one-off.”

Dravid said the 82-Test veteran might go on to play many more five-day games. “Sometimes you get dropped from teams and you make a comeback and you can play for as long as you’re performing. It’s not written in stone that you only get one match,” said Dravid. “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.

Pujara’s advice valuable

Cheteshwar Pujara has scored tons of runs in county cricket in England over the past couple of years. While his teammates were playing in the IPL, he was piling on the runs for Sussex.

“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,” Dravid said. “...and we’ll see how we can maybe incorporate some of that. Doesn’t drastically change some of the basics of the game,” he added.

The Oval will hosts its first ever Test in the month of June and the conditions might not be as batting-friendly as they are later in the English summer. However, Dravid is not reading too much into it. “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,” said the former captain. — PTI

Threat to Test cricket

Franchise cricket around the world has jeopardised the future of the five-day game, with only a few nations committed to Test cricket. When it comes to the traditional format, Rahul Dravid feels more would be 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 they don’t have context in itself,” he said. “I mean, anytime you play for your country, play against someone else, there’s always context... You always want to win those series. But you really hope that it will encourage a lot more teams to be able to potentially play a lot more Test cricket,” said Dravid, who figured in 164 Test. “I know it is complicated and there are a variety of reasons why that is probably not happening, both in terms of time, finances. But certainly, we’d like to see a lot more Test cricket,” he added.