The India coach thinks his team’s performance in Barbados won’t be impacted by their losses to Australia in the previous year’s major finals.
Head coach Rahul Dravid said that recent losses in the ICC finals won’t affect how India plays in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup final.
In their two most recent ICC finals, India fell short at the last hurdle after losing to Australia in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup final in Ahmedabad and the ICC World Test Championship final in London last year.
However, Dravid thinks that this won’t affect India’s performance in the one-off match against South Africa on Saturday in Barbados, where the Asian team is trying to win their second T20 World Cup after winning the first one back in 2007.
“I don’t think players go in keeping the baggage of the past and what has happened in the past, so every day is a fresh day,” Dravid stated.
“Players are excellent at letting go of and identifying things. So, yes, I believe that as we get past Ahmedabad, they won’t be reflecting on the past and that the day will be new.
“There are two strong teams. Everyone will probably agree that South Africa and India, the tournament’s top two teams, played some of the best cricket that was played in this competition.
“So, deserving finals for both the teams and hopefully it’s a great game of cricket and hopefully we fall on the right side.”
India is undefeated going into the T20 World Cup final; their only loss came in a match against Canada in Florida when bad weather forced the match to be called off.
Four wins have come since the Canada match and three wins came before it, but Dravid believes India hasn’t yet put up a flawless show at the competition.
Although Dravid is a realist and is focusing on keeping the players at ease so they can perform at or near their best during the match, he is hopeful that the team would play a flawless match against South Africa.
“I believe you’re constantly trying to get better. Furthermore, I don’t think it’s possible to have a flawless game,” Dravid stated.
“It is true that we haven’t played a flawless game in any of our games, and I doubt that any team ever does.
“Well, look, I mean, I think that one day it won’t be that; you’re going to start making too many changes all of a sudden.” Therefore, I believe that for us going into this final, it really just comes down to remaining calm, believing in the quality of cricket we’ve played, and realizing that, despite the fact that we’ve found ourselves in tight situations throughout the tournament, we’ve always found players and individuals to step up and deliver the goods.
“Also just recognizing that we’ve got a really good balance in the team, we’ve got the players and just for us to, like I answered earlier, maybe just come there really well prepared, do all the things that we can do, control all the controllable, do everything that we need to do and then just go out and play hopefully a great game of cricket.”
