India cancel practice session before T20 World Cup final vs South Africa, hold successive press meets for first time

Since the final starts early on Saturday in Barbados, the Indian team management decided to give the players adequate rest instead of indulging in a training session. “India have cancelled their training session,” said the ICC.

In another first, India held two press conferences back-to-back in Guyana. The first one was the post-match press conference for India’s 68-run win against England in the semi-final. This was addressed by Player of the Match Axar Patel. The next was a pre-match media interaction for the final, attended by head coach Rahul Dravid.

“India have already addressed their pre-match media conference,” ICC added.

Axar, who bagged three wickets for 23 runs in his four-over spell at an economy rate of 5.80, said the 171 that India got was 10-15 runs more than what would have been a par score at the slow pitch. “I think we could have easily defended at 170. It was a very good score. The way the wicket was behaving, when we spoke to Rohit [Sharma], he said it was very difficult to hit a big shot because the odd ball is spinning and the odd ball is also staying down, skidding on. So that was our thought that 150-160 is a very good score, we can defend it. So, when we made 170, we knew that we made 10-15 runs more,” he said.

India bowled South Africa out for 103 in 16.4 overs to enter their third T20 World Cup final. Sunday’s final will be their first shot at the title since 2014, where they came second best to Sri Lanka.

Head coach Rahul Dravid, in his address before the final, defended out-of-form Virat Kohli. “You know with Virat, the thing is, when you play a slightly high risk brand of cricket there can be times when it doesn’t come off,” Dravid said.

South Africa, meanwhile, had their own share of troubles when their players and support staff were stranded in the Trinidad airport for several hours after a landing failure of a small private aircraft at the Grantley Adams airport in Barbados. The airport was closed for inspections by the Civil Aviation Authority and the Barbados Police Service.

They, however, are set to hold an optional training session and a pre-match press conference on Friday.

“South Africa will hold an optional training session at the Kensington Oval from 14h00 to 17h00 local time. They will address their pre-match media conference in person at the venue at 13h00 local time,” ICC said.

This will be South Africa’s maiden appearance in a World Cup final in any format.