Kane Williamson-led New Zealand have beaten India by eight wickets to win the first-ever World Test Championship (WTC) at the Hampshire Bowl in Southampton. New Zealand's two most experienced batsmen Williamson and Ross Taylor got their side home after the off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin dismissed the two openers Tom Latham and Devon Conway in quick succession.
Latham and Conway started in a measured way and didn't give Indian pacers any chance whatsoever. Indian pacers bowled tight lines and lengths and kept the scoring rate in check albeit without any success. Like the first innings, it was the veteran offie, Ashwin who broke the opening stand.
Ashwin lured Latham to dance down the wicket with a flighted delivery, which turned just a touch, enough to get past his bat and wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant to disturb the bails in time. A couple of overs later, Ashwin, who missed an LBW chance against Williamson, which was overturned by the TV umpire, successfully trapped Conway in front of the wickets and New Zealand were 44/2 and New Zealand still required 95 more runs to win.
Despite a couple of dropped chances, one of Taylor and one of Williamson, the experienced duo didn't look in any discomfort and took their side home. Williamson brought up his half-century after missing out on it in the first innings by just one run. This was only the second fifty of the whole final after Conway's 54-run knock in the first innings.
Earlier, it was New Zealand's four-pronged pace attack led by Tim Southee that produced an excellent exhibition of seam bowling on the reserve day of the WTC final against India to bowl them out for a score of just 170 in the third innings of the match. India began their day at 64/2 with a lead of 32 runs, however, the first innings' wrecker-in-chief Kyle Jamieson was at it again and dismissed skipper Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara in quick succession.
Apart from Rishabh Pant, no other Indian batsman could offer any resistance and Tim Southee, who started this innings by removing both openers, finished the innings by removing the two Indian pacers Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah, to finish with four wickets for the innings.
This is New Zealand's second ICC trophy after their win in the 2000 Knockouts, that too against India.
