NEWS
Follow UsFormer England captain Michael Vaughan predicts New Zealand to pip India in the inaugural World Test Championship (WTC) final in Southampton, beginning June 18. With England already playing a couple of Tests against England before the big match and the fact that the game will be played with the Duke ball are some of the reasons Vaughan has picked New Zealand over India.
“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.”
A veteran of 82 Tests, Vaughan also reckons this is the best-ever New Zealand side. “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 added.
“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,” he further said.
Vaughan was recently in news for saying Williamson would have been the greatest cricketer if he was an Indian. He also shut out former Pakistan captain Salman Butt for taking a dig at him for his comments