MUMBAI: Former India captain Rahul Dravid feels the country’s recent 2-3 loss to Australia at home in the ODI series will have no effect on their ICC World Cup campaign starting on May 30 in the UK.

“In the last 30 months, India has been playing really well, and the loss, much to the credit [of] the way Australia played, came at the back end of a very busy series,” he told the Times of India.

“We have the right combination for the World Cup. If India win the World Cup, we will not be worrying about who won 2-3 or 3-2. There will be an odd series that India will lose. But the [ICC] rankings prove that India is there and should win the World Cup to become No.1.”

Talking about the World Cup squad, Dravid said, “[They have] a lot of combinations, lot of options. It is a question of them performing in the tournament. You can always argue one or two cases, one or two names. The team has been picked, [now] back it and hope they do really well.”

Dravid scored 461 runs, with two centuries, the last time England hosted the 1999 World Cup.

“I expect the games to be totally different than in 1999, when England last hosted the World Cup, which was a slightly low-scoring affair,” he recalled. “This World Cup will probably be a much high scoring one, and India is well equipped for that. English conditions have actually changed, especially for ODIs. We were there last year for [an] ‘A’ series, and the scores were really high — 300 was par score, and was being chased consistently.

“ODIs have changed in England and [you] can’t go with the typical mindset that it will be the old English conditions [of swing and seam]. Wickets have become flatter, encouraging higher scores.”

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2019