I'm still kinda just stunned that we won this series. I would have given us barely 1 in 1000 odds two weeks ago.
Firstly, the NZ team should celebrate long and hard and feel enormously satisfied at what they've achieved. This is something historic.
A one-off T20 win against an (expected-to-be) much better side would be one thing, but to win two test matches against overwhelming odds in foreign conditions like this is almost enough to make you want to throw out every single thing you thought you knew about the game. At first it's almost incomprehensible and is yet another sign of the impending apocalypse. The tooth fairy exists.
But, have to put together a collection of thoughts that would've still made sense pre-series, and try to understand it somehow:
- On rare occasions, Indian conditions are helpful to swing bowling.
- Indian pitches occasionally have bounce for the seamers, too.
- O'Rourke can surprise people.
- In theory, the core of the Indian batting is in decline, though there's an enormous weight of runs behind Rohit & Kohli and they're playing at home.
- Conway is a good player underneath his poor form of the last 18 months.
- Rachin could be a top-tier test batsman.
- Perhaps there's some weakness in the attacking nature of India's younger batters. Though damn those batting averages are high.
- In theory, Southee can bat well... once every fifty knocks.
- Ashwin and Jadeja are getting old, though they've obliterated our batting every other tour and still have a hundred tricks up their sleeves.
- Historically Latham plays spin well, though not really for the last three years.
- In theory, we could call the toss of a coin correctly 50% of the time.
- Santner's style of spin from height should make him a threat in some conditions - ahaha this was surely the longest bow of all given his career record. More than Ashwin and Jadeja, really???
- NZ's performance in the second test in Sri Lanka was awful and just off, but perhaps they can find some spark somewhere?
Somehow the scales fell NZ's way on all of these. That's not at all the same as saying we were lucky - we absolutely did play better on the field in both tests. The only real piece of luck was the pace-friendly conditions in the first test.
So there are reasons we won, even if it all just seems so improbable.
Or, put it down to the magic of test cricket and the magic of sport, if you prefer.