The biggest test of all

It’s a comfortable narrative to ease into: New Zealand’s plucky underdogs seeking to slay world cricket’s giants, India, to win their first world title in 21 years.

On one side, a country of 1 billion where cricket is the national obsession, its board the sport’s most powerful with an annual income of nearly $800 million, compared with the little nation of 5 million with just 20 annually contracted men’s cricketers and six first-class teams whose players are unpaid over winter. New Zealand Cricket’s revenue last year: $60.6 million.

For all that, victory for Kane Williamson and his Black Caps in the inaugural World Test Championship final against Virat Kohli’s India at the Ageas Bowl, near Southampton, starting tonight (9.30pm NZT), would not be a major surprise.

Bookmakers installed India only marginal favourites in what looks a 50-50 contest.

Victory over the next five days (potentially six, with a reserve day scheduled and rain forecast) would be this New Zealand team’s most significant result.

Yes, a handful of tests have been won in Australia, England (as recently as last week) and India, but on a world stage with the white ball it’s a painfully short list.

The only Black Caps title saw captain Stephen Fleming hoist the ICC Knockout Trophy in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2000. Two years ago Williamson’s men stormed Old Trafford, Manchester, in their black kit and booked their place in the Cricket World Cup final.

The losing side both times? India, containing some of their alltime greats Tendulkar, Kumble, Dhoni and Kohli. They may be cricketing rock stars, but there’s no intimidation factor for the New Zealanders.

This is a different cricketing format, too. Its purest, said by some to be nearing extinction amid the Twenty20 onslaught, with players still wearing whites and cable-knit jerseys and pausing for tea in the afternoon. In 150 years of test cricket, never has a world title been contested.

The WTC was designed to provide context for test cricket and while its format looked unfair, with some series not played amid Covid-19, what do you know: the sides ranked No1 (New Zealand) and No2 (India) on the International Cricket Council’s test rankings will meet in the decider.

Up for grabs is the ICC mace and prizemoney of $2.25 million to the winners and $1.13m to the losers. A draw, and the title and cash are shared, with no obscure countback rule to foil fans as it did after a pulsating World Cup final against England.

The Black Caps made the final via six straight wins at home, with a leg-up from Australia’s slow over rate against India in the Boxing

Day test. That saw Australia docked four vital WTC points, otherwise it was Tim Paine v Virat Kohli this week.

Instead Williamson and Kohli – friends off the pitch and two of the world’s premier batsmen – will flip the coin at Ageas Bowl, chosen over Lord’s as the best biosecure venue in the UK. Both teams were housed at the Hilton Hotel overlooking the pitch and kept apart until match day: India on the third floor directly above the Black Caps.

Crowd restrictions mean around 6000 per day allowed in. UK-based Kiwis have scrambled for tickets with assistance from team management, and healthy New Zealand support is expected in a pared-back atmosphere.

How can the Black Caps win it? On form they’re near unstoppable, having dusted themselves off from a 3-0 hammering by Paine’s Australia in January, 2020, and won seven of their next eight tests including both against India the following month at home.

The tag ‘world class’ wasn’t often applied to more than a few New Zealand cricketers; now it can be safely used for nearly the entire XI. Add in two gamebreakers – the towering allrounder Kyle Jamieson who stunned India on debut, and opener Devon Conway whose double-century at Lord’s rewrote the record books – and this will be New Zealand’s strongest XI over their 90 years of test cricket. No question.

If the English Dukes ball swings generously for Tim Southee and Trent Boult, it sparks uncertainty for India’s batsmen who quelled Australia’s fast bowlers when the Black Caps couldn’t. Neutral ground eases it New Zealand’s way, too, conditions more akin to home than India’s dustbowls.

India have an imposing top-six including rising star Rishabh Pant who slayed Australia at Brisbane to seal their place, and a pace attack nearly the equal of New Zealand’s spearheaded by Jasprit Bumrah and Ishant Sharma. Plus the spin of Ravichandran Ashwin, up with Nathan Lyon as the world’s best tweaker.

Spin may be a factor later, but the bowling attack who can exploit the swing, and the batting lineup who can defy it, should win.

On both counts the Black Caps are well equipped, fresh off a 1-0 series win over England, a vital lead-in that could be telling, despite Paine’s confident tip.

‘‘This will be New Zealand’s strongest XI over their 90 years of test cricket. No question.’’

Kane Williamson and Virat Kohli will stride to the centre of Southampton’s Ageas Bowl in their team blazers and caps today – weather permitting – each carrying the tag ‘batting great’ as comfortably as their respective slabs of willow.

Their mind-boggling stats mirror each other’s (Williamson career average 53.60; Kohli 52.37), as do their impressive test captaincy win rates (Williamson 58 per cent; Kohli 60), at the helm of sides ranked one and two in the world. They even became fathers of daughters within a month of each other in December-January, each missing big matches to focus on more important deliveries.

Both are central figures and their side’s key men in this inaugural World Test Championship decider (9.30pm start NZT), but the similarities don’t extend much further, on or off the pitch.

Their fame and fortune reflects cricket’s relative status and economies in India and New Zealand.

Kolhi’s Indian Premier League ($3.25 million) and Indian national team ($1.34m) contracts nudge him towards $5 million annually, without endorsements which skyrocket that figure. Williamson’s IPL deal is less than one-fifth of Kohli’s ($573,000), and combined with his NZ Cricket earnings of around $450,000 edge him up towards seven figures.

Kolhi and wife Anushka Sharma post photos from their lavish 35th floor Mumbai apartment (he has 127 million Instagram followers); Williamson and wife Sarah Raheem are intensely private. New Zealand’s skipper can jump on a surfboard or wander up the road from their Mount Maunganui home for a coffee and attract little attention, rarely posting on Insta to his 1.7 million followers.

So too their personalities; Kohli a snarling, combative on-field presence and Williamson humble and understated, contrasting but equally successful leadership styles.

With bat in hand, both inspire wonderment in cricket fans for different reasons, with Australian Steve Smith ever-present in the Big Three debate. Former England captain and cricket writer for The Times, Michael Atherton, grappled with the comparison in January after Williamson batted 29 hours across three home tests.

‘‘Kohli, for sure, is a magnetic presence on the cricket field and demands our attention: when a short video of him batting in the nets before India’s previous tour of Australia in 2018-19 was released, it provoked a whole column, so crisp was his ball-striking, so feline his movements. Smith’s technique, too, is fascinating, as it is so unusual and against the grain of orthodoxy,’’ Atherton wrote.

‘‘Williamson’s game is not so eye-catching. You can’t really imagine emulating the way Kohli or Smith play, but you could imagine trying to copy Williamson [in your dreams]. Yet he has the purest technique on show; plays the ball later than anyone else; makes better decisions more often and, at the moment, is scoring more runs, more consistently.’’

On the eve of this test, Smith overtook Williamson to No 1 on the world rankings with Kohli moving up a spot to No4. Former Black Caps batting coach Craig McMillan rated Williamson No 1 in January, telling Stuff: ‘‘I have Kane with his nose in front because day in, day out he’s having to do it in bowler friendly conditions [in New Zealand] and very rarely do you get a good, flat batting deck that perhaps some of those other teams get in their home countries.’’

Williamson and wife Sarah Raheem are intensely private . . . rarely posting on Insta to his 1.7 million followers.

The other intriguing thread to the Kohli v Kane narrative is that both arrived in Southampton under a cloud.

Williamson’s left elbow injury –

Kolhi and wife Anushka Sharma post photos from their lavish 35th floor Mumbai apartment (he has 127 million Instagram followers).