I Don’t Believe In Having One Final To Decide The Best Test Team: Kohli
Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor played unbeaten knocks off 52 and 47 respectively as New Zealand defeated India by eight wickets to clinch the inaugural edition of the WTC
Mumbai: After India lost the World Test Championship final to New Zealand, captain Virat Kohli said he doesn’t believe in having one final to decide the best Test side over the course of one game.
“Well, look, first of all, I honestly don’t fully agree to decide the best Test team in the world during a match. If it is a Test series, it has to be a test of character over three Tests, which team has the ability to come back into the series or totally blow away the other team. It can’t just be pressure applied over two days of good cricket and then you suddenly are not a good Test side anymore. I don’t believe in that,” said Kohli while replying to an ANI query during a virtual press conference.
“I think it has to be a hard grind and something that definitely needs to be worked on in the future to really — at the end of three matches, there’s effort, there’s ups and downs, there are situations changing throughout the course of the series, a chance to rectify the things that you’ve done wrong in the first game and then really see who’s the better side over the course of a three-match series or something will be a good measure of how things really are, so we are not too bothered by this result because we understand, as I said, as a Test side what we’ve done over the last three, four years, not just over the last 18 months but over the last three, four years. So this is not a measure of who we are as a team and the ability and the potential we have had for so many years now,” he added.
Talking further about what would be the ideal WTC final, Kohli said: Well, absolutely. I mean, if you saw the way the game went with whatever time we got on the field, as well, why wouldn’t you want to see two more Tests of the same teams battling it out and eventually being the winners of the World Test Championship. I think historically all the great series that you’ve seen in Test cricket, you remember them over a period of three matches or five matches perhaps, but two teams going against each other and those series become memorable.”
“I think it should definitely be brought in. I am not saying this because we are not on the winning side, but just for the sake of Test cricket and to make this saga completely memorable, I think it has to happen over a period of three games minimum so that you have a series to remember because there are going to be ups and downs through and through with two quality sides going at each other knowing that there’s so much on the line,” he added.
Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor played unbeaten knocks off 52 and 47 respectively as New Zealand defeated India by eight wickets to clinch the inaugural edition of the WTC. New Zealand chased down the target of 139 in the final session of the sixth day. With this, New Zealand won their first ICC event since their victory in the ICC KnockOut Trophy final on October 15, 2000.
(With ANI Inputs)
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