New Zealand defeated India to win the World Test Championship

 New Zealand won the title by defeating India by eight wickets in the final of the World Test Championship.

With the victory of New Zealand, the championship started by the International Cricket Council (ICC) two years ago has come to an end.

On the fifth and final day of the match in Southampton, England, India gave New Zealand a 139-run target to win, which the Kiwis batsmen easily achieved at a loss of two wickets.

Kiwis captain Ken Williamson (52) and Ross Taylor (47) played unbeaten innings. Opening batsmen Tom Latham Nine and Devon Conway scored 19 runs.

It may be recalled that India scored 217 in their first innings and 170 in the second while New Zealand scored 249 in the first innings and 140 in the second.

In the second innings too, the Indian batting line appeared to be under pressure and at the beginning of the innings, the match seemed to go out of India's hands.

India's five batsmen returned to the pavilion with a total score of only 109 runs and the wickets continued to fall intermittently, leaving the entire team limited to 170 runs.

Tim Southee (four), Trent Bolt (three), Kyle Jameson (two) and Neil Wagner (one) led the Kiwis bowling attack.

In the second innings, New Zealand got an easy target of 139 runs to win, then the Kiwis batsmen got the target on the last ball of the 46th over without any difficulty and won the World Test Championship title.

It is to be noted that the ICC had started the 'World Test Championship' for the promotion of Test cricket from August 1, 2019 in which 27 series consisting of 71 Test matches were played between the top nine teams of the world.

The teams in the Test Championship included England, Australia, South Africa, Pakistan, India, England, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the West Indies.