The former captain of the Indian cricket team, Rahul Dravid thinks that India has the potential to win the World Cup and become No.1. Dravid believes that the recent 2-3 loss of India to Australia will not have much impact on the campaign of India to win the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019.
India Is Playing Really Well, Says Rahul Dravid
Despite India losing the five-match series last month after taking a 2-0 lead and losing 3 games at stretch Dravid still feels that India is really playing well.
According to the former captain, the fantastic form of the Indian team in the past few years has enabled it to reach No.2 spot on the MRF Tyres ICC ODI Team Rankings. Hence, he is of the opinion that Team India is one of the hot favorites to win the World Cup this year.
According to Rahul Dravid, “In the last 30 months, India has been playing really well, and the loss, much to the credit [of] the way Australia played, came at the back end of a very busy series. We have the right combination for the World Cup. If India wins the World Cup, we will not be worrying about who won 2-3 or 3-2. There will be an odd series that India will lose. But the [ICC] rankings prove that India is there and should win the World Cup to become No.1.”
The ‘Wall’ Says Indian Squad Is Well-Balanced
While speaking about the selection of the 15-player World Cup team, he said that the Indian team is well balanced and hence it does not matter if the selectors have decided to drop Rishabh Pant and Ambati Rayadu.
He said, “India has a very good, balanced team for this World Cup. [They have] a lot of combinations, a lot of options. It is a question of them performing in the tournament. You can always argue one or two cases, one or two names. The team has been picked, [now] back it and hope they do really well.”
Dravid Gets Nostalgic, Says Today’s Games Are Different Than In 1999
The last World cup hosted by England was in 1999 during which Dravid was the highest run-getter scoring 461 runs with two centuries and averaging 65.85. But he says the conditions of today are quite different than in 1999.
He recalled, “I expect the games to be totally different than in 1999 when England last hosted the World Cup, which was a slightly low-scoring affair. This World Cup will probably be a much high scoring one, and India is well equipped for that. English conditions have actually changed, especially for ODIs. We were there last year for [an] ‘A’ series, and the scores were really high – 300 was par score, and was being chased consistently.”
Rahul Dravid further added, “ODIs have changed in England and [you] can’t go with the typical mindset that it will be the old English conditions [of swing and seam]. Wickets have become flatter, encouraging higher scores.”
