Lanky pacer Kyle Jamieson was the wrecker-in-chief with the ball as New Zealand defeated India by 8 wickets to clinch the inaugural World Test Championship (WTC) title last week.
Jamieson was adjudged Player-of-the-Match for his 7 wickets in the marquee game, including a five-wicket haul in India’s first innings.
One of the best batsmen in the modern era, Virat Kohli was outfoxed twice in the WTC final by Jamieson.
He might have dismissed Kohli thrice in red-ball cricket so far, but the Kiwi speedster believes that the Indian captain is a world class player and he wouldn’t call him his bunny.
“I don’t think so. Sometimes you get a little bit lucky with the way the ball moves. Whilst it was nice to get him a couple of times in that game, he’s a world class player for a reason. There might be a little bit of stick once we catch up again, but nothing too crazy,” Jamieson told stuff.co.nz.
For the unversed, Kyle Jamieson and Virat Kohli share a good rapport as the former is one of the newest recruits of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Before the WTC final, RCB all-rounder Dan Christian had revealed that Kohli asked Jamieson to bowl with the Dukes to him in the nets during the first half of IPL 2021 but the BlackCaps fast bowler refused.
Jamieson said the story of Kohli asking him to bowl at him “had a bit of tax added”.
Reflecting on his time at RCB, the 26-year-old said: “Any time you get to spend time in different environments with world-class guys you grow in confidence and learn, and get a lot more comfortable when you come up against them. From that perspective, to spend time in that [RCB] environment helped settle the nerves.”
The marquee clash saw two full days of play get washed out due to rain in Southampton and there were fewer chances of a result in the favour of either side. But Day 6, which was a reserve day, produced the result after New Zealand bowlers bundled out India for 170 runs.
Chasing 139 to win, New Zealand were in a spot of bother at 44/2 but the duo of Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor stitched an unbeaten 96-run stand to take their team over the line.
“We were watching it on TV and there was a delay from what was happening out in the middle. With the crowd noise it seemed like there was a wicket every ball. We weren’t great, we were sitting in our chairs and we weren’t moving. Nice to have Kane and Ross out there to settle it and get the job done,” Jamieson said.
