New Zealand pace bowler Neil Wagner has said that the New Zealand team are not going to take the two-Test match series against England lightly for the sake of the inaugural World Test Championship final against India as well. Notably, New Zealand are slated to take on England in a two-match Test series, starting from June 2, before facing India in the World Test Championships final at Southampton which will begin from June 18.
However, Wagner has reached London, with the likes of his captain Kane Williamson and others. “We’re not going to treat these two Test matches against England just as warm-ups [for the WTC final]. I know for a fact we’re going to get out there and pride ourselves the way we’ve been playing Test cricket and we want to win Test matches for New Zealand,” Neil Wagner said to the reporters before leaving Auckland for England.
“It’s been quite nice, it’s obviously got different characteristics to the Kookaburra,” Wagner revealed. “The way we’ve been training for the last while is something we didn’t always have in the past, having the facilities and having a marquee up and getting a number of training in before going to England. On tours in the past, you rock up there and you’ve only got a couple of training and maybe one head out with the Dukes ball before the first Test and with that you can find yourself a little behind.”
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Meanwhile, both India and New Zealand last time met in an ICC event was in the 2019 semi-final of ICC Cricket World Cup. There New Zealand successfully beat India but later they also lost the final against England on the back of boundary counting as well. On the other hand, India have been in a great position in the longer format where they have won against Australia last year and then against England at home earlier this year as well.
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“But having had those little bits of training leading into it has been quite beneficial, just because it’s a little different, and obviously adapting to it. It’s been perfect preparation and everybody is excited about bowling with it. Sometimes you have to control all that because there’s a high expectation of the ball doing a lot and moving around but sometimes you can get there and it can be quite flat and slow as well. The nice thing about it is we’ve got a wealth of experience and the guys have been there before, so we can feed off each other and bounce ideas off each other as well,” Neil Wagnor was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.
