Dravid backs India for WTC final berth after Sri Lanka win

"It'll be a great run if India can qualify for WTC final from here": Rahul Dravid

New Delhi, August 25

Dravid is set to begin a new journey as a team owner of the Dublin Guardians in the inaugural edition of the European T20 Premier League.

Speaking to JioStar, Dravid shared his thoughts on Team India's chances of making it to the ICC World Test Championship Final and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's prospects of playing Test cricket.

India currently ranks 5th in the ICC World Test Championship 2025-27 standings with a points percentage (PCT) of 53.33%. Australia is leading the table, followed by South Africa, New Zealand and Bangladesh.

On India's chances of qualifying for the ICC World Test Championship Final, he said, "I'm hoping they do. It'll be a great run if India can qualify for the WTC final from here. They've fallen behind a little bit, but the kind of quality that the Indian team has, you're not going to write them off at any stage. They started off well against Sri Lanka, so that's a good first step."

"Hopefully, they can keep the guys fit and not have a lot of injuries over the next few months. Australia will be really exciting. A lot of their players will be very keen to do well in India. That's a generation of truly great Australian players, a great Australian team that has not won in India. So they'll be keen to do that," he added.

He further added, "New Zealand away is always a challenge. Tough team, New Zealand, to play away from home. A lot of the young Indian boys have not played in those conditions, so that's going to be a big challenge. We're missing the experience of Virat and Rohit, Ajinkya Rahane and Pujara, these kinds of guys who've probably been there the last time India went. So that will be an interesting series as well."

Dravid also shared his thoughts on the teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's prospect of playing Test cricket. Sooryavanshi recently made his international debut for India on the tour of England, after a couple of prolific IPL seasons with Rajasthan Royals. Sooryavanshi made his IPL debut for RR when Rahul Dravid was the head coach of the Royals during IPL 2025.

"With Vaibhav, you've got to be patient. He's only 15 years old, and from what I've seen of the kid, I have no doubt that, given the opportunity to practice and play domestic cricket and a couple of seasons of red-ball cricket, he will be able to hold his own in a Test match team. Whether he'll be able to break into the XI with the guys already performing, that's a different story and a tricky one," he said.

"Whether he'll have the time to play two full seasons of domestic cricket because he'll be so busy playing for India in the white-ball format, I'm not sure about that. So skill-wise, I think no problem; whether they'll be able to do it because of schedules might be a bit trickier," he concluded.

— ANI