After the postponement of IPL 2021, the focus of cricket fans and pundits has shifted to the World Test Championship (WTC) final, slated to be played between India and New Zealand in Southampton from June 18-22.
With less than a month to go for the historic game, former England captain Michael Vaughan has picked his winner, citing that the Kiwis will pip India on the basis of the following reasons.
"New Zealand (will win). English conditions, the Duke ball, and India on the back of a busy schedule… they’ll arrive pretty much a week before and go straight into it, [and] New Zealand have two test matches, you could argue warmups against England to get them prepared for the final," Vaughan told Spark Sport.
"So it’s quite an obvious one for me, New Zealand will be better prepared and they’ll have more of a group of players who’ve played more cricket with the red ball, particularly the Duke ball here in the UK. New Zealand, all the way."
Vaughan also shared his two cents on the current New Zealand side being their best in history.
According to the ex-England cricketer, there's something about the current team that really distinguishes it from the rest.
"It’s not difficult, you haven’t had many great teams. You’ve had great players, you go back to the 80s, Richard Hadlee and Martin Crowe were up there with the greatest to have ever played test match cricket. As a team, Brendon McCullum’s team were exciting and vibrant but I never felt they were consistent because they let the opposition in by playing so aggressively," Vaughan remarked.
"Under Kane Williamson you’ve started to play high class, disciplined test match cricket over long periods, and real quality teams do it over day one to five. And it takes until the end of day five to wear a team down to get that win, this is what this New Zealand side can do."
Before the WTC final, New Zealand will play England in two Tests at Lord’s (June 2-6) and Edgbaston (June 10-14) and the Kiwi Test contingent have already arrived in UK.
Team India are expected to reach England in the first week of June after serving a stern quarantine in Mumbai.
