Ravi Shastri, head coach of Team India, praised New Zealand for winning the World Test Championship Final against India in Southampton. New Zealand won the game on the sixth day by eight wickets and became the ultimate champions in Test cricket.
The game was poised well at the start of the sixth day but Indian batsmen failed to pose any challenge in front of New Zealand and threw their wickets away cheaply. New Zealand were needed 139 runs to win the final and they got there on the back of a 96-run partnership between Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor.
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Ravi Shastri took on Twitter to congratulate New Zealand on this win. He believes New Zealand were the better team and deserving winners.
“Better team won in the conditions. Deserved winners after the longest wait for a World Title. Classic example of big things don’t come easy. Well played, New Zealand. Respect,” Shastri wrote on Twitter.
Earlier, Virat Kohli put the blame on Indian batsmen for letting the team down on the big day.
“We definitely need to work out better plans on understanding how to score runs. We have to stay in sync with the momentum of the game and not let the game drift away too much. I don’t think there are any technical difficulties as such,” said Kohli.
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However, Kohli backed his team’s approach of going for the kill instead of taking the game nowhere while standing in the middle.
“The endeavour would be to try and score runs and not worry about getting out in testing conditions. That’s the way you can put the opposition under pressure otherwise you are standing there hoping that you don’t get out and you are not being optimistic enough,” said Kohli.
This defeat in the final has stretched Team India’s title-less drought to eight years. Champions Trophy 2013 was the last ICC tournament that India won and since then have lost three finals – World T20 2014 against Sri Lanka, Champion Trophy 2017 against Pakistan and WTC Final 2021 against New Zealand.
