New Zealand ended the 21-year long ICC Trophy drought by becoming the first side to win the inaugural edition of the World Test Championship after defeating India by 8 wickets.
As we know that a game of cricket is won by the side that makes better decisions and remains pro-active throughout the course of the match, Kane Williamson and his men were clinical to say the least.
An all-out pace attack : –
New Zealand went with four quick bowlers and each of them offered something unique from the other. If Boult troubled the right-handers with the delivery that did not tail back, Jamieson was clever enough to mix up his two deliveries, the one that seams away and the nip-backer, to pick the ever crucial wicket of Virat Kohli twice or even Wagner’s barrage of short deliveries to specific batters paid off. Importantly, their bowlers managed to get the ball to swing unlike most of the Indian bowlers. Going in with no spinner meant that the Indian batting did not have any opening or respite from the quicks. A spinner here would have released the pressure that the quicks created instead of maintaining it from one end since most of the Indian batsmen play with a higher average against spin.
Trivia : Average swing in overs 1-5 (First innings)
NZ – 2.07 degrees, IND – 0.67 degrees (Courtesy : Cricviz)
A stable opening pair : –
Tom Latham and Devon Conway were very clear in their head regarding the game plan against the pacers. Latham left most of the deliveries outside the off-stump and scored runs when the bowler resorted to a straighter line. Before the test match began, Devon Conway’s outside edge was beaten only thrice in four innings says a statistic and we saw why his defense was so hard to get past. The openers adding 70 and 33 for the first wicket in the two innings ensured that the middle-order was not exposed earlier.
Cometh the hour, Cometh captain Kane : –
The sheer amount of time and the runs that Williamson scored under such trying conditions in a final were like gold dust. For context, his 49 (177) would have been his slowest fifty in test cricket. Such an innings tired down the opposition bowling attack and that was visible when the tail was scoring freely against India. Williamson got through a tough spell from Ashwin in the second innings when two quick wickets fell before finishing the game in a fourth innings chase.
Trivia : Out of the 77 good length deliveries that Williamson faced, he scored 7 runs and was dismissed on one of those.
Jamieson’s impressive lengths and record vs India : –
Jamieson picked his fifth five wicket haul in his eighth test match which was the WTC Final. He finished with astonishing figures of 5/61 in this game and certainly loves to play against India. In his debut series last year, he was the arch nemesis of the Indian batting line-up during a 2-0 series win at home. He used the height to his advantage. His length was a tad fuller than the other bowlers but at the same time he was able to generate more bounce which is bewildering to face as a batter because the delivery spikes upwards after pitching on three-fourths of the wicket and when the bowler starts to generate bounce in conditions where the ball is already doing it’s bit in terms of swing, he become more than a threat. Jamieson’s wickets came at a time when New Zealand were in need of them – dismissing Rohit to end a 63-run stand on day 2, beating Virat on both edges of the bat in the two dismissals as well as the wicket of Pujara on the reserve day because we know that he can bat for long.
The ICC Test Mace goes to New Zealand and that also means that we’ve had 7 different winners in the last 7 ICC tournaments. It’s been a wonderful test match to watch as a viewer and we can only hope that Test cricket always remains relevant.
Follow us on the social media platforms below and do subscribe to us here!
Kanishk Sharma 