Assistant coach Abhishek Nayar brushed away the concerns about India’s current predicament in reaching next year’s World Test Championship final by asserting that the team hasn’t been narrow-minded about what has been happening after their recent results. Despite suffering back-to-back defeats against New Zealand, India still sit at the summit of the WTC standings with a 62.82-point percentage. Despite India’s dominance at this point in time in WTC, the pathway to feature in London next year has become a tricky affair.
The Rohit Sharma-led side needs to taste victory in their remaining six Tests of the cycle, with five of those being against Australia in next month’s Border Gavaskar Trophy.
India has made it to two consecutive WTC finals but fell short on both occasions. However, this time the pathway to the WTC final isn’t as simple as it appeared to be.
If the hosts manage to go against its dwindling form and punch their wicket to victory at Wankhede in the third Test against New Zealand, beginning on Friday, India will be just three Test wins away from featuring in the final.
With doubts rising over India’s chances of making the cut for the final, Nayar laid out their approach for the challenging period that lies ahead of them.
“When you put on the Indian jersey and the badge on every game is critical. We have not been narrow-minded while thinking about the WTC or what is happening. I think what is ahead of us is this game at Wankhede. Hopefully, conditions will be kind to me and the team as well,” Nayar said in a press conference on Wednesday.
“So I think the approach is pretty simple. Stay in the present and take it simple day by day. If we can work on this, I think that would be one step further in where this team wants to be eventually,” he added.
If India goes on to pull four wins out of its remaining six games, then Rohit’s side will be left with 64.04 per cent points, assuming that India does not drop any points due to a slow over rate, then Gautam Gambhir’s men will feature in the final, irrespective of other results.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)