“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,” Dravid told JioHotstar.

India will tour New Zealand in November to play two Test matches in November later this year under this WTC cycle. India had lost the Test series the last time they played in New Zealand 2-0. Dravid believes facing New Zealand is always a challenge and how it will be a big challenge for the current Indian Test team.

“(Playing against) New Zealand away, (is) always a challenge. (They are a) tough team 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. Hopefully, they can keep the guys fit and not have a lot of injuries over the next few months. We’re missing the experience of Virat (Kohli) and Rohit (Sharma), Ajinkya Rahane and (Cheteshwar) 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 added.

India will then play hosts to Australia in the five Test matches of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy starting January next year and Dravid also shared how the current Australia team would be eager to win the series in India. “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,” said Dravid.