ডাকবাংলা

New Zealand were popular, worthy and deserving winners of the inaugural World Test Championship, turning in the kind of all-round performance in the final that the world has come to expect of them. While, as an Indian, I was rooting for Virat Kohli and his boys to come through, India’s defeat was somewhat softened by the fact that the man who lifted the mace was Kane Williamson, someone I have come to know really well over the last few years at Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Watching the grace and equanimity with which Kane reacted on Wednesday when Ross Taylor brought up the winning runs took me back to the scenes at the end of the World Cup final in 2019. New Zealand had lost the cup without losing the final, and when I saw Kane at the ground not long after the match, he just put his hands on my shoulders and said, “Oh, Lax!” You could hear the pain in his voice, but that was about it. He wasn’t overwhelmed by the outcome, just like he didn’t go over the top after his side was crowned Test champions.

Kane is a fabulous leader with a wonderful bunch under him. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole, and there is so much focus and purpose to what they do. I thought BJ Watling’s fierce desire to continue to keep wicket despite dislocating his ring finger on his final day in Test cricket pretty much summed up the New Zealand way of playing cricket, the New Zealand way of life, actually.

India will be hurting, especially at their ordinary second-innings batting performance. They had handled more difficult conditions in the first innings with greater aplomb, but in the best batting conditions of the Test on day six, they didn’t do enough to even secure a draw that would have given them a share of the spoils. For a team that prides itself on taking adversity in its stride, the manner of the defeat rather the result itself must be galling. Agreed, New Zealand’s bowlers gave away nothing and consistently kept asking questions, but you would have expected a line-up as accomplished as India’s to have come up with better answers.

New Zealand exposed a few technical inadequacies in the top order that England must have taken note of. India have plenty of issues to address between now and the start of the five-Test series on August 4.They will contemplate some hard decisions, as Virat has already indicated, but knowing him and his team, I am sure they will use the Southampton Test as a spur to greater things as they kick off their campaign in the second WTC.

Cover image courtesy ICC

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