New Zealand: From unofficial ambassadors to official world Test champions

Over two decades after their last triumph in an ICC event, New Zealand showed a lot of heart to be the best in cricket’s most arduous format

The last time New Zealand woke up to news of winning an ICC cricket event, Kane Williamson was 10 and Ross Taylor still two seasons away from his domestic debut for Central Districts. Twenty-one years after that comprehensive four-wicket win against Sourav Ganguly’s India at the ICC knockout championship in Nairobi, New Zealand finally savoured their moment under a fickle Southampton sun when these two gentlemen, two of their greatest ever, strapped themselves to the pitch to stitch their most important partnership.

New Zealand players celebrate with the trophy after winning the World Test Championship final at the Rose Bowl in Southampton on Wednesday. (Reuters)

It wasn’t pretty. The strokes weren’t flowing as the ball kept finding new ways to hurt the body. Williamson was wincing after copping snorters from Mohammad Shami. Taylor had to go through a concussion check after taking his eyes off Jasprit Bumrah. But the mind prevailed. Their patience finally paid off.

“It was just great, the heart the team showed to take it across the line,” said Williamson later, at a press conference on Wednesday after the eight-wicket win in the World Test Championship final. “We saw both teams grab the momentum at certain points in time, and then to have the sixth day as back-up made for a fantastic game to be a part of. For us it’s a very proud moment in our history and a proud moment, just as a team really, to stick to what we do well and come away with the win, which is a really great feeling.”

Simply put, this was the validation New Zealand were seeking since Brendon McCullum’s aggressive captaincy initiated a step-up from semi-final losses in the 2007 and 2011 World Cup editions. A great fielding unit, the Kiwis always had incisive fast bowlers and a solid bunch of batsmen. But the important wins finally started to come once New Zealand learnt how to temper McCullum’s devil-may-care brand of batting with Williamson’s calming presence. Still, no team has had to wait this long for winning a major. Twenty20 wasn’t perhaps their thing to begin with but after the heartbreaks of 2015 and 2019 when they lost a tied World Cup final, even the best start doubting their capability.

Not anymore. From now and forever, New Zealand will be the inaugural world Test champions.

“We have been involved in a couple of finals previously, and I suppose the first one (2015 loss to Australia) was one-sided, the second one was pretty interesting, and this feeling is a bit different to those, which is great. 2019 was a great occasion and a brilliant game of cricket as well,” said Williamson. “But obviously it’s a slightly different feeling, being on the right side of the result for us, and also a part of a great game of cricket and a great occasion, the first official World Test Championship. This is a really good feeling.”

The comfort with which New Zealand wear the tag of ‘nice guys’ is because of their ability to rein in emotion irrespective of the result. Not a word out of place, always effusively praising the opposition and the occasion, New Zealand are like unofficial ambassadors of the game. Williamson attributes it to the culture of being true to themselves as a team, something they take pride in more than anything. “In terms of our team and our behaviours (sic), we try and commit to what’s important to us,” he said. “People can comment on that, or tag us how they would like, but it’s not about being anything other than authentic to us as a group and the sort of cricket that we want to play, and the behaviours that are important to us day in, day out. That’s something that is important to us as a team.”

You can trace this attitude to the daily reality check cricket gets in New Zealand. In a country of five million where rugby union is almost religion, cricket has to work hard to stay relevant after football, basketball and even netball. At home, New Zealand cricketers are not prima donnas. Their cricket is largely urban centric, with a domestic competition that’s roughly one-sixth of the Ranji Trophy in size. In their 2018-19 financial report, New Zealand Cricket reported revenue of approximately $37 million. The same year, BCCI was projected to add roughly ₹2600 crore, or around $350 million. Because of the pandemic, NZC was reportedly forced to let go of 15% of its staff in order to save close to $4 million in operating costs last year. A one-day force like New Zealand probably deserves more but for long they have battled aspersions cast on their geographical remoteness that has in turn distanced them from cricket’s riches. This World Test Championship win, thus, was a deserving recognition of a team that rarely got more than two-match series with the best sides of the world.

It was also fitting the winning runs came off Taylor’s bat. This 37-year-old New Zealander is one the oldest links to a generation that never got its due despite making five out of six World Cup semi-finals between 1999 and 2019. The individual brilliance of Sir Richard Hadlee and Martin Crowe brought New Zealand early recognition but closer evaluation will reveal a thoroughly ingenuous team over the years: the brains behind off-spinner Dipak Patel opening the bowling and Mark Greatbatch (also a current selector) introducing and nailing the concept of a pinch-hitter. Leadership made a telling difference too. If Stephen Fleming taught the art of mastering tact, McCullum lent aggression and Williamson brought composure. But all of them also knew how to explore and excel in every possible aspect of the game. This is why New Zealand became a better at fielding before, say, teams from the sub-continent. That Martin Guptill throw from the deep to run out MS Dhoni in a tense 2019 World Cup semi-final is a classic example of how great fielding can alter matches.

New Zealand are always at their best as a team. This Test provided another example of that. If Devon Conway and Kyle Jamieson are the individual revelations they were seeking on the skill front, in BJ Watling they had a fighter who didn’t want to sit out of the final Test session of his career because of a dislocated finger. This win was built on contributions from everyone: Jamieson’s swing bowling; Henry Nicholls’s fantastic catch of Rishabh Pant; Conway’s resilient opening stand with Tom Latham. New Zealand have always been a great team. Only now have they officially proven to be more than a sum of their parts. “I think for us, we know we don’t always have the stars, and we use our bits and pieces to stay in games and be competitive,” said Williamson. “I think we saw that in this match. I think we saw a lot of heart, a lot of commitment.”