Beat India by eight wickets, Indian bowlers were helpless in front of Williamson-Ross Taylor
Southampton: New Zealand’s team has become the first official champion in the history of Test cricket for 144 years. Kiwi team defeated India by eight wickets to win the ICC World Test Championship final. In the match played on the reserve day in Southampton, the Kiwi team restricted India to just 170 runs in the second innings. New Zealand, which had taken a 32-run lead in the first innings, were set a target of just 139 runs on this ground, which they achieved thanks to the brilliant batting of captain Williamson and the experienced Ross Taylor.
R. Ashwin did get both the openers out, but Ross Taylor and Kane Williamson forced India to defeat by building a wall. Kane Williamson scored an unbeaten 52 in 89 balls with the help of 8 fours, while Ross Taylor remained unbeaten 47 runs in 100 balls with the help of 6 fours. There was a match-winning 96-run partnership between the two for the third wicket.
Chasing an easy target of 139 runs, the Kiwi team started off cautiously. The pair of Tom Latham and Devon Conway added 33 runs. Here Team India needed an early wicket, but both kept him away from the wicket for 13 overs. Ravichandran Ashwin, however, gave India the first breakthrough by getting Tom Latham (9) stumped by Rishabh Pant in the third ball of the 14th over.
After this, he also made the second opener Devon Conway (19) his victim. Here New Zealand did appear under some pressure in front of Ashwin, but the two most successful batsmen in Kiwi Test history, Ross Taylor and Kane Williamson, took the lead and increased the run-rate. Especially Taylor played a major role in removing the pressure while batting aggressively.
Earlier, the Indian batting order proved unsuccessful in the second innings and none of the batsmen could play a big innings. For India, wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant scored the highest 41 runs in 88 balls with the help of four fours. For New Zealand, Tim Southee took four wickets, Trent Boult took three wickets, Kyle Jamieson took two wickets and Neil Wegner took one wicket.
India began the morning at 64 for two but skipper Virat Kohli (13 off 29 balls) and Cheteshwar Pujara (15 off 80 balls) took a defensive approach. Jamieson, however, did not allow these two to last long. In the second session also his batsmen could not show any charisma. In India’s innings, Rohit Sharma scored 30 runs, Shubman Gill 8, Ravindra Jadeja 15, Ravichandran Ashwin 7, Mohammed Shami 13 and Jasprit Bumrah got out without opening the account while Ishant Sharma remained unbeaten on one run.
