Nevertheless, the former Indian captain said it would be nice to win the trophy because it’s something his team has been working on for the past two years.

India lost in the final of the first WTC tournament to New Zealand in 2021 and was guilty of failing in elimination games.

No, not at all. I mean, we don’t feel any pressure to win the ICC trophy. Of course, it would be great to do so. Of course it would be great to win the ICC tournament. But also in the context of things, you look at it and you see it’s the culmination of two years of work.

It’s the culmination of a lot of successes that get you here. You can take a lot of positives out of it to see where you stand on the table. Winning the series in Australia, tying the series here, being highly competitive everywhere this team has played in the world in the last five or six years.

I think those are things that will never change just because you have or don’t have an ICC trophy. That’s really the big picture, Dravid said.

‘Rahane shouldn’t look at this as a one-off game’

Ajinkya Rahane has to play his first test in 18 months, and failure to play could potentially end his career. Dravid gave advice to an experienced batter.

First of all, it’s good that we have him. We’ve had several injuries, which probably led to his opportunity to return to the lineup. It’s great for us to have someone of his caliber back.

Obviously, he brings a lot of experience, he’s proven himself in foreign environments. Even in England he threw some terrific innings for us.

He also brought some terrific slip catching to our group. He just brings his personality to the group, which is very important. He has led the team to significant success. Again, I wouldn’t want him to approach this as an isolated incident. Dravid said the 82-year veteran could play many more five-day games for the team.

Sometimes you get dropped from teams and you come back and you can play as long as you play well and as long as you perform. It’s not set in stone and it’s not a rule that you only get one match. He played well, really showed what he can do.

Who knows, even when people come back from injury, you never know what could happen. So, again, from my point of view, it’s not a matter ofThat’s what this match is all about. Yes, this match is important, but in the broader context of things, there’s a lot of cricket to be played and beyond, he said.

‘Pujara’s advice was valuable’

Cheteshwar Pujara has scored tons of points in English cricket in the last couple of years. While his teammates were playing in the IPL, he was scoring for the Sussex team.

We’ve had conversations with Puja – about captaincy, about batting, but he also leads Sussex. So he’s also well versed in the tactics and strategies used by many of the county bowlers he’s played with.

So we’ve had some conversations and discussions with him about that, and we’ll see how we can incorporate some of that. It doesn’t drastically change some of the basics of the game. They always stay the same, Dravid said.

The Oval will take its first-ever test in June, and conditions may not be as favorable for baseball as they are in late English summer. Dravid, however, doesn’t attach too much importance to that.

We just have to respond to what we see in terms of conditions and how it will play out in the middle. And, hopefully, we have the resources and the ability to handle whatever comes our way.

I wish more teams would play Test cricket

Franchise cricket around the world has jeopardized the future of the five-day game, and few countries are committed to Test cricket. When it comes to the traditional format, Dravid believes that the more the better.

I really hope that through things like the World Test Championship, when you have some context for many of these bilateral games, it’s not that — frankly, it’s not that they don’t have a context in and of themselves.

I mean, when you’re playing for your country, playing against somebody else, there’s always context, always – you always want to win these series. But you know, I really hope that this encourages a lot more teams to potentially play a lot more Test cricket or find a way to play a lot more Test cricket.

I know it’s difficult and that it’s hard to go into that in a press conference, and there are a lot of reasons why it probably won’t happen, both from a time standpoint and a financial standpoint, there are a lot of things that go into that.

But, of course, we’d like to see a lot more Teѕv cricket – personally, at least to me, xI wish a lot more people played test cricket, he added.