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Team India might not have won an ICC trophy since 2013, but head coach Rahul Dravid insisted that his team does not feel any pressure about this heading into the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia, starting on Monday, June 7.
At the same time, the former India skipper also wants to win the coveted mace as he believes that his team has worked hard to reach this position in the last two years, having lost the inaugural WTC final to New Zealand in 2021 while having a poor record in knockout games since their ICC Champions Trophy performance in 2013.
"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 told the media ahead of the WTC final.
"It's a culmination of a lot of success that gets you here. So there are a lot of positives to take from that to see where you stand on the table. Winning series in Australia, drawing series here, and 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," Dravid added.
‘Spoken to Cheteshwar Pujara about England playing conditions’
He has also taken into account the form of Cheteshwar Pujara in county cricket over the last two years. "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.
"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."
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