New Zealanders ‘down under’ and ‘up above’ will be still celebrating their team’s memorable and epoch success when they beat the more fancied Indians by eight wickets to win the first ever ICC World Test Championship final in Southampton on Wednesday.
Before the toss India were the favourites, because they were putting into battle a fine all-round side comprising top class batsmen and bowlers led by an aggressive captain in Virat Kohli.
On the other hand the Kiwis had no spin bowler of class as compared to India’s Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja the penetrative spin twins and also a fearsome pace attack of Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah. The New Zealanders were relying on the seam and swing of Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Neigel Wagner and new comer Kyle Jamieson.
In the wet weather that prevails in England even though it is summer, it is the seamers who bowl good line and length that succeed and so was the case this time around too.
New Zealand moved into this first ever final with a victory over England in a Test match and confidence was high. India flew in and had enough time to acclimatize and be charged for the big game.
But at the end as the result showed it was the Kiwis who led admirably by the consistent scoring Kane Williamson who scored a fifty when it most mattered in the victory chase. They played the better cricket suited for the wicket and the conditions and triumphed.
For debut-making left handed Kiwi opener Devon Conway this tour and the final will not be one that he will forget for the rest of his career. After bashing the England bowlers to become the first debutant to score a double hundred in a Test on the holy land of cricket, Lord’s, he marked his name in the books as the first batsman to score a fifty in this history making final.
The Kiwi cricketers would have celebrated this success in grand style. Cruelly deprived of victory in the previous World Cup final all cricket fans would not have begrudged them this victory, but cheered their success.
The Kiwis with this great triumph carried away a brand new trophy and 1.6 million dollars.
Farokh Engineer hits out
Farokh Engineer was one of the most handsome, elegant, stylish and successful wicket keeper opening batsmen produced by India in the 1960s and 1970s in the international cricket scene.
He was one of the rare Indian cricketers to break through the English cricket barrier and play for the English county Lancashire for 17 long years in county cricket.
Those were the days when countries like England and Australia looked down on Asian teams especially India and Pakistan and did not like to play them at cricket. The ‘whites’ as England and Australia were called, suffered probably an inferiority complex when playing.
Recently Engineer was big news when in a Sri Lankan weekend newspaper he let fly --like he did with the bat when wielding it-- by fearlessly and bravely speaking about racism in the article headlined ‘WE WERE ALL ‘BLOODY INDIANS’ till a few years ago when the Indian Premier League cricket tournament started.
He hit out like he was doing during innings in the middle and told that weekend news sheet that the England players started licking their (Indian) boots once the Indian Premier League cricket tournament started.
Not only ‘bloody Indians’ there would have been other racist remarks barked at the Indians, but Engineer now domiciled in England showed the diplomat in him to use boxing parlance by holding his punches and not wanting to act like the English and Aussie cricketers of that era did.
Here’s more of what Engineer told that newspaper’s Indian Correspondent: We were all ‘bloody Indians’ to them till a few years back. Once the IPL started, they are all licking our backsides. It amazes me that, just because of the money, they are licking our boots now. But people like me know what their true colours were initially. Now they suddenly changed their tunes. India is a good country to go for a few months and do some television work, if not play and make money’. Now aged 83, Engineer played 175 games for Lancashire from 1968 to 1976. He played 46 Tests for India.
On the subject of the ugly and unacceptable racism, it was a practice at that time with the South Africans reveling in it and having to pay for it and sent to the wilderness of sport before reforming and being accepted.
Here’s a story of what took place at the P. Sara Oval when Sri Lanka was playing England in a game before Sri Lanka entered the elite league of Test cricket told to the writer and which went public.
Former Wesley College and Bloomfield stalwart left hand batsman and wicket keeper Russell Hamer was the guy involved. Hamer said that when he was batting and when he hit a ball that was travelling to the boundary and when he was running to the non-striker’s end in case the ball was stopped, Jeff Arnold the England fast bowler in anger spat on him.
Knowing Hamer who was aggression personified when playing the game returned fire by spitting back at Arnold. Hamer did not stop at that. When Arnold came to bat he gave Arnold a bellyful in choicest foul four letter words and Arnold remained stunned and never opened his mouth, because Arnold never recovered from that bashing.
And every word of what Hamer uttered can be believed because he was a character and the writer knew him well and played against him. Hamer after showing his colours at Wesley played ‘Sara’ cricket for Bloomfield and then captained the Maharaja Organization now known as Capital Maharaja in Mercantile cricket.