New Zealand defeated India by 8-wickets on Wednesday at The Rose Bowl, Southampton, and were crowned as the first-ICC World Test Champions. India set New Zealand a target of 139 runs in the fourth innings on the reserve day of the Test match.
New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson’s 52* off 89 deliveries and Ross Taylor’s 47 off 100 deliveries steered the Kiwi’s home. In this article, we take a look at what went wrong for the Indian Team in the ICC World Test Championship final 2021 against New Zealand.
1. Indian top-order disappoints
Indian openers Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill helped India to get off to a brilliant start in the first innings of the ICC World Test Championship final. Both put together a 62 runs partnership for the first wicket, before Rohit Sharma (34 off 68) was caught by Tim Southee off Kyle Jamieson’s bowling.
Soon after, Shubman Gill (28 off 64) followed his opening partner back to the pavilion. This has been the story of almost every Top order Indian batsman in this final. Skipper Virat Kohli and his deputy Ajinkya Rahane too got decent starts but couldn’t convert those into big ones.
Indian wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant (41 off 88), in the third innings, was caught by Henry Nicholls as he decided to take on the Kiwi bowlers and extend India’s lead as much as possible. On a wicket where scoring runs has been difficult, India’s top-order batsman not converting their starts hurt India the most.
