ICC World Cup is around the corner where along with England and Australia, India is one of the favourites. With a balanced side, India will surely give a good fight to the opponents. However, former India player Rahul Dravid said India will be benefitted in the middle overs as they have wicket-taking bowlers. The mega event will begin from May 30 in England where India will play their first game against South Africa on June 5.
“I believe, having experienced some of the conditions in England last year with the A tour, it would be a high scoring World Cup. And in a high scoring World Cup, having bowlers who can take wickets in the middle will be very important. I think India is lucky in that regard,” Dravid said to Star Sports at the Star Re.Imagine Awards.
“People like (Jasprit) Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal… (We have) got bowlers who can take wickets. Teams that are taking wickets through those middle-overs in those high scoring games have a better better chance of restricting the opposition,” he further said.
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Dravid also shared about India’s prospects in the upcoming mega event.
“I think we have had a couple of really good years leading to the World Cup. For right reasons, we are No. 2 in the World and that actually means that we have consistently produced some successful results in the last two and half years. We can be hopeful. I think it’s going to be a tough World Cup. Every team comes well prepared and wants to compete. Everyone at the World Cup will be putting their best foot forward,” Dravid expressed.
“So having said that I would say India is definitely one of the favourites into the tournament and all of us can be hopeful. Hopefully, we make the semi-final and from there on there are four very good teams,” Dravid said. “Bowling is going to play a very big role in this World Cup and the team that bowls best, probably will be closer to winning it.”
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The legendary batsman shared his thoughts about India captain Virat Kohli as well.
“Virat, you know he just keeps improving, keeps getting better. He is setting bars and standards that possibly we thought would never be achieved. Sachin (Tendulkar) scored 49-50 hundreds in one-day cricket. People thought that this would take a lot of time to achieve, will it be ever achieved… and now Virat is 10 away from it or close to it,” he told.
“One of the things about Virat is that even if he has a bad tour, it is not that he hasn’t had bad tours, he had disappointing tour of England in 2014, he wasn’t as successful in Australia first time around, but every time he goes back again he goes back as a better player. He sort of reinvents his game to a point where he is constantly improving,” Dravid further added.
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Later, the veteran cricketer also praised the former World Cup-winning captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
“The beauty about MS is that he plays these big tournaments and these big matches and that’s why he finds himself in so many of these big games, he plays them, and they mean a lot. I tell a lot of under-19 boys, he is able to find a way to play it like it doesn’t mean a lot, obviously it means a lot. He is able to see a bigger picture in it and say I’m not defined by this particular game. It is a hard thing to do,” Dravid said.
