India reach the World Test Championship (WTC) Final, as New Zealand won the first test match and don’t let the Sri Lankan side clean-sweep the two-test match series. Both the matches at Ahmedabad and Christchurch ended on the same day, so as the last match of Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2023 got drawn, Men in Blue won the Test series by 2-1 and reached the WTC Final.
Sunil Gavaskar thinks India deserved to be in WTC Final-
“New Zealand won, fine, it’s good for New Zealand cricket, but, Gavaskar added, “I don’t think Indian cricket owes New Zealand cricket any thank you or anything of that sort,”
“Because India have played quite outstanding cricket over the last two years since the 2021 World Test Championship final and therefore, they deserve to be in the finals on their own and not with anybody’s help,” the former Indian skipper shared.
The first test match between the Dimuth Karunaratne and Tim Southee, teams at Christchurch was a thriller, the game result was decided on the last ball, while on Day 5, the Black Caps started their innings on 28/1, for chasing the 285 run target. Kane Williamson remained unbeaten on 121 runs and helped his side win the match by two wickets.
“Every great batter thinks about a hundred. A century is the minimum price he keeps for his wicket. The way Kohli was batting in the last two-and-a-half years when he didn’t score a century, he was batting well, scored seven or eight fifties,” he further added.
Virat Kohli ended his drought of Test centuries by scoring 186 runs in the fourth test match of BGT 2023, Kohli last scored a ton in a longer format of the game in November 2019, former Indian skipper now has 75 centuries in international cricket.
Last 3 balls drama
How kane leads to Victory#NZvsSLhttps://t.co/83y9qYuFgQ— Abhi (@CoverDrive001) March 13, 2023
“So it never seemed that he was out of form, the only thing that was happening was that he was getting out on his first mistake,” continued former Indian cricketer.
Shubman Gill on Day 3 of the Ahmedabad Test scored a century, while at the end of play on Day 4, the 34-year-old brought up his 28th Test century to take team India to the 571 mark in the first innings.
“He started slightly slowly, where he was trying to figure out the pitch and the bowling. Then he played a few shots after getting set and tried to play even more shots after he had scored a century,” concluded Gavaskar on Kohli.
Whereas, after the end of the IND VS AUS Test 2023 series, Ravichandran Ashwin emerged as the highest wicket-taker, he was a joint award winner of the player of the series for his 25 wickets in four matches along with Ravindra Jadeja. While Virat Kohli was the player of the match for his blistering innings of 186 at the Ahmedabad Test, he was also the highest run scorer for the Rohit Sharma-led side in the BGT 2023.
Now Men in Blue will take on the Aussies in the three matches ODI series, starting from March 17 at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.