Calm and composed even after winning the inaugural World Test Championship title last week in Southampton, New Zealand captain Kane Williamson has now opened up about his camaraderie with India counterpart Virat Kohli. A picture of Williamson sharing a hug with Kohli post the conclusion of the WTC final went viral on social media. New Zealand defeated India by eight wickets in the WTC final recently. The image of two world-class batters embracing each other after a highly competitive game of cricket spoke a lot about the friendship and mutual respect the two players share.
Kohli and Williamson had played against each other for the first time in the 2008 ICC U-19 World Cup tournament in Malaysia. In that game, the latter had defeated the Kiwis in the semifinal. India eventually went on to lift the trophy by beating South Africa by 12 runs.
“It was a great moment, you know, toe-to-toe, and obviously, Virat and I have known each other for a long time and we are mates. It’s always a great part of sports as you get the opportunity to meet people all around the world and form different friendships,” Kane Williamson told India Today.
“Different experiences that you have either together or against each other. And often you find a bit of common ground and share a few common interests,” he added.
Williamson also talked about the celebrations after the match and how he tried to calm the Kiwi players, who were in a jubilant mood.
“I was trying to tell the guys to just keep calm but they weren’t listening to me much. There was a lot of elation, I suppose, and there was a whole mix of feelings and emotions,” he said.
Kohli had reciprocated Williamson’s gesture by saying that New Zealand had shown great consistency and heart to win the title.
“Big congratulations to Kane and the whole team. They showed great consistency and heart to pull out a result in just over three days, sticking to their processes to put us under pressure. They deserved the win,” Kohli had said after New Zealand’s win.
