Neeraj Chopra: The golden arm boy

 India is, in some books, slight favorites to win this World Cup of Test cricket, based on recent evidence and not necessarily via head-to-head matches, just as they should presumably be favorites to win every tournament given the extremely well-resourced cricketing infrastructure in place. Nonetheless, the weight of their wealth may be felt at times. Since their previous championship in 2013, they've had three major final appearances (+ three semis).

They have a lot in common with New Zealand, who are in their third final (+ one semi) in the same time frame and have yet to win in any effort. If India is under pressure to capitalize on its talent surplus, New Zealand's concerns center on the urgent need to strike while the iron is hot, because the supply line may soon dry up.

There is more context than a first-ever Test Championship final could provide, as the game's custodians had intended. Kohli, on the other hand, played it down, potentially as a pressure-relieving strategy, saying that while the match was historic, it was not a game that would define his career.

"If you're talking about Test cricket and judging who the best side in the world is based on a single game played over five days, that is not the reality of the truth," he added. "It won't mean anything to those who truly know the game and know exactly what's happened in the previous four or five years and how the teams have performed."

"This is another Test match that needs to be played for me." From the outside, I think these things are extremely thrilling because there is so much significance and so much extra material linked to one game. It's almost a do-or-die situation. You may look back on things that didn't go your way in history, but at the end of the day, you're going to be beaten, and you're going to win on a certain occasion.

"We have been on a journey for excellence as a team for quite some time now, and we will continue on that road regardless of what happens in this game. Every day, we strive for greatness. We won the 2011 World Cup as individual players, which was a fantastic achievement for all of us, but cricket, like life, goes on."

Williamson utilized understatement to express emotion in a similar way to the earlier similar and different' exercise. "It's an honor to be here, with the chance to play in the inaugural final." But now it's simply a matter of focusing on maintaining that progress. Our staff has experienced a lot of development throughout the years. The crew is committed to overcoming obstacles with a positive mindset. That's where the lads' attention will be focused, and it will continue to be focused beyond this match - we're looking at the long game."

Is it possible for a single cricket match to have much greater importance in a sport that has been around for more than a century? Perhaps not, as Kohli and Williamson have pointed out. The processes put in place to get here, as well as those that may be replicated, or even bettered, in future cycles, may well aid in the format's survival. In any case, it's already shaping up to be a very interesting final, a meeting of comparable vision statements rather than a battle of styles, and a moment of coronation for at least one of contemporary cricket's great golden harvests.