NEW DELHI: Head coach Rahul Dravid on Monday made it clear that playing the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia, soon after the conclusion of IPL, is going to be a big challenge for the Indian team.
The WTC final will be played at The Oval in London from June 7-11, while the IPL ends on May 28.
India made it to the second successive WTC final courtesy New Zealand's thrilling two-wicket win over Sri Lanka in Christchurch just before the post-lunch session on the final day of the fourth India-Australia Test - which ended in a draw in Ahmedabad as the hosts clinched the Border-Gavaskar series 2-1.
Terming it a "challenge", the Indian head coach said they would have to plan it out properly.
"We just qualified at lunchtime today. I wasn't counting my chickens before they hatched. We'll celebrate this for starters," Dravid said after the Test match.
"It is going to be a challenge. There's going to be a lot of logistics involved given the IPL final is only a week before the WTC final. We'll think about it."
Regarding the Test series against Australia, Dravid was most impressed by the Indian team's ability to fight back from extremely difficult situations.
"Whenever we were under pressure with our backs to the wall we had to respond and we always found that. It's one of the heartening things about coaching this team," Dravid told the official broadcaster Star Sports.
"Rohit led the way in the first Test with a brilliant hundred and it was bookended by Virat Kohli's brilliant 186. In the middle we had performances from (Ravichandran) Ashwin, (Ravindra) Jadeja, Axar (Patel), Shubman there. I've probably missed out on a few. I think our fight stood out."
India won the first two Tests in Nagpur and Delhi while Australia pulled one back in Indore as each of the first three matches of the series lasted two and half days on spiteful turning tracks.
But the pitch on offer for the series-deciding fourth Test was good for batting as Australia made full use of winning the toss to post a big total with centuries from Usman Khawaja (180) and Cameron Green (114).
"It was a really hard-fought series, there were moments where we were put under extreme pressure by a really good cricket team and we responded. Whenever we needed someone to step up and put in a special performance, we found it."
(With inputs from PTI)
