New Delhi, Delhi, India

New Zealand players received a fantastic welcome when they landed home with the ICC World Test Championship mace. WTC-winning pacer Neil Wagner has given a piece of knowledge into New Zealand's extraordinary excursion back home, loaded with thrilled fans, welcoming traditions authorities, and even cops anxious to click an image with the celebrated Test mace. 

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The new Zealand crew, their skipper Kane Williamson and a couple of different players who remained back in England for The Hundred - landed in New Zealand on Saturday. They will presently go through a 14-day compulsory quarantine period prior to joining with their families. 

Neil Wagner insightfully discussed how their celebrations have been influenced by the COVID-19 conventions. He, in any case, added that the responses of New Zealanders in England subsequent to seeing the mace, their good tidings and glad countenances, compensated for everything solely. 

ALSO READ: Cricket: Tim Paine eats 'humble pie' after predicting India's easy win in WTC Final

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In conversation with a New Zealand-based site, he said: "It's still hard to put into words, to be fair. It still feels unreal. Everything is socially distanced, so you can't even really shake their hands, and we had the mace, everyone wanted to take a photo, you can't even do that, or we couldn't pass it on. It's a bit of a shame but it's part of the world we live in at the moment. It was quite nice to see some Kiwis walk past and see what it means to them, albeit in the distance waving away, and saying congratulations, it means a lot to all the boys."

"I don't think I've ever walked into customs and got greeted the way we did. Everyone was just straight away congratulations, pretty happy, grabbed our passports and all they wanted to ask was, Where's the mace, where's the mace? Seeing even police officers stopping wanting to have a photo from a distance with it was nice to see the smiles on everyone's faces" - he added.

Neil Wagner himself assumed a vital part in New Zealand's noteworthy WTC crusade. The aggressive pacer got three wickets as the Black Caps beat India by eight wickets in the last at Southampton. 

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Neil Wagner likewise discussed how he and his colleagues alternated with the WTC mace on the plane before at long last giving it to BJ Watling for the following fourteen days. Neil Wagner said: 

"We shared the mace around on the plane and throughout the whole night while celebrating, everybody had their turn to carry it around and make full use of that. And then on the plane, Ross Taylor got me to hand over the mace to BJ Watling, he's going to take care of it for the next two weeks in isolation."

BJ Watling closed draperies on his 14-year-long worldwide vocation following the WTC final, having represented his country in 108 matches across all formats. 

"I think it's a fitting way for him to send his career off, it's been an amazing career for us, the role he's played for a number of years now, just the whole person he is and heart and soul of the team. He epitomizes everything we are about as a team, the team-first attitude, being a guy that scraps and fights for everything, he's led that all the way from the start. He'll be sorely missed in this team," he added.