New Zealand registered a 3-0 series win over India in their den, which is a huge achievement for them as well. After the feat, Tom Latham, the captain of New Zealand shared his views.
“I’m lost for words a little bit in terms of what’s happened over the last three days, but also the last sort of three weeks,” New Zealand captain Tom Latham said. “I guess if you asked me at the start of the tour whether I would have liked to be in this position… to be here now and play the cricket that we’ve played is really special and I’m really proud of the group.”
However, New Zealand arrived in India after a recent poor show. Their key batter Kane Williamson was out for the first – and eventually all three Tests due to an injury and veteran bowler Tim Southee had just leadership in the aftermath of the Test series humbling in Sri Lanka, including an innings where they were bowled out for 88.
“I guess from my point of view, leading this group… It’s always a really proud moment to lead New Zealand and I guess to come here and be my first time as full-time captain and to be in this position is really special,” Latham said. “But for me it’s not about me, it’s about the team and yeah the team has done the job. At the end of the day, everyone’s chipped in when they need it and that’s the beauty of a team sport. It’s not going to be everyone’s day on particular days but guys stand up when they need to. And guys stood up at certain times throughout this whole series which I’m really proud of.”
However, New Zealand had the upperhand in the series starting as early as the first morning, when they bundled out the host for 46, after which India played catch-up all through as well.
“I think that wicket in Bangalore was a pretty tricky one and I think our seamers did a fantastic job in terms of what we were able to achieve there and we certainly knew in these conditions naturally, the way that India play, they are quite aggressive and tend to take the game on a little bit more and that’s something we spoke about and something that we tried to plan for,” Latham shared.
“Even today, you know with Rishabh [Pant] still there, I certainly didn’t believe that the game was over and you know they have match winners throughout their side and they’ve been successful playing the way that they’ve been playing for a long period of time,” Latham said. “I think we managed to fall on the right side of a couple of tosses and I guess in doing that we managed to put runs on the board in the last couple of games and I guess when you’re chasing scores and you know from our point of view runs on the board are really important and some of these pitches that we’ve played on have been really hard. They certainly haven’t got easier from a batting point of view, so we knew today India were going to come hard. They did that in Pune and they did that again today. And we obviously managed to get the results which was really nice.”
“Pretty happy we got the job done. It’s been a massive achievement and I think after the first one it was obviously pretty special the second one – to win a series you know was even more special. And we spoke about coming here and trying to adapt as much as we can and I guess to be in this position [3-0], it’s certainly a series that I’ll never forget. We’ll obviously share that, and we’ll celebrate as a group together tonight and the next couple of days before we head home, but yeah it’s certainly been an amazing series to be a part of. I think it will sink in a little bit more when we get home and once the dust settles, but yeah it’s been a fantastic achievement,” Tom Latham concluded.
