Australia head coach Andrew McDonald feels their "sub-continent journey" helped them get the World Test Championship mace. Australia became the WTC 2023 champions by defeating India by 209 runs in the final at the Oval on June 11.
Having missed out due to over-rate penalties in the 2019-21 cycle, Australia on Sunday became the first team to win ICC world titles across formats.
McDonald credited the tough cricket that Australia played in the subcontinent against Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and India, for their success in the WTC 2023.
"You can string down series in isolation, you can talk about the subcontinent journey where we went from Pakistan to Sri Lanka into India. We had to navigate through that. So, it was a tricky World Test championship cycle and I think the wins in the subcontinent got us here,” McDonald told reporters.
Before traveling to India, Australia won a three-match series in Pakistan 1-0 with a crushing 115-run defeat of the hosts in Lahore in March. Then in Sri Lanka, they won the first Test by 10 wickets only to go down by an innings and 39 runs in a drawn 1-1 series.
Australia then lost 1-2 in India, with the bright spot being their brilliant win in Indore Test in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy earlier this year.
He added: "We're really strong in Australia. So, I think that most people would expect us to be winning Test matches in Australia, but to be able to execute in Pakistan, win a Test match in Sri Lanka, and then get that win in Indore to secure a place in the final was vitally important to give us this opportunity. And we've been able to take that, so it's a job well done."
The 42-year-old further said they were just buying into the "new concept" of the WTC having missed out on the inaugural final in 2021.
"It's a new concept. But we're certainly buying into the concept and I think that was probably the disappointment of the first couple of years when it was in existence where we missed out due to over rate so we've made it a significant focus of ours. Every time we come into a series we're checking in around where we are, there's a ladder, albeit stretched out over two years, which is a little bit different from other sports, but yeah, it's high on the priority list.
And you put on the priority list, you want to be here and you want to win it and that's what we've been able to do. So it's right up there. And if you go into that dressing room at the moment, there's a lot of happy people about, reflecting on what they've been able to achieve over the last few years,” McDonald said.
However, attention will turn to the highly anticipated Ashes match in less than a week, where England will be hoping to end a 22-year winless streak.
"Probably the next 24 hours we will switch our focus as you will, in what you do to the Ashes and the first Test. We can't wait for it to come around. First was the World Test Championship final. Let's enjoy what the team's been able to achieve over the last couple of years and then get excited about Edgbaston ball one.
So one thing that we've got to factor into England is how we deny them those boundaries. So there are a couple of things that we can potentially tidy up and take from this game into the next one, but a different opponent. So we'll get back to the drawing board around that,” he signed off.
(PTI inputs)
