Tom Latham aiming for aggression in India

By Kris Shannon

Tom Latham’s first chance to put his imprint on the Black Caps doubles as the toughest challenge in test cricket – knocking over India at home.

And the new skipper believes there’s one way to achieve a result that has eluded almost all of his predecessors – playing with freedom and aggression.

New Zealand have won two of 36 test matches in India, most recently when Sir Richard Hadlee took 10-88 at Wankhede 36 years ago.

But they are far from alone in their struggles, with India having lost only four times at home in the last decade.

England and Australia share those rare wins and the last, when Brendon McCullum’s side earned a famous 28-run triumph in January, offered an approach that appealed to Latham.

Trailing by 190 runs after the first innings, the tourists were not cowed during their second turn with the bat on the third day in Hyderabad, proceeding to score at a rate of 4.11 while racking up 420.

Such onslaughts aren’t exactly easy to replicate. England No 3 Ollie Pope paced the innings by cracking 196 off 278 balls; the Black Caps in the first test at least will have Will Young in that position.

But chasing a result is almost impossible while playing with conservatism on perilous pitches, and Latham hopes his team heed that lesson.

“It’s a huge challenge going over to India, playing them in their own conditions,” the captain said. “Hopefully we can go over there and play with a bit of freedom, with no fear and try to take it to them.

“We’ve seen teams that have done well there in the past have been quite aggressive towards them, especially with the bat. They’ve looked to play a few shots but also put them under pressure, which is really important over there, rather than sitting and waiting for something to happen.”

Playing proactively reaped the best results for the Black Caps in demanding conditions last month in Sri Lanka, though the only result that really mattered was an eventual 2-0 series win for the home side.

While one innings in Galle ended in an 88-run rubble, two of the tourists’ other efforts produced totals they would happily take on the subcontinent. Rather than attempting any immediate overhaul in his first outing as fulltime skipper, Latham wanted batters to build on that blueprint while facing a similarly daunting assignment.

“We’ve done a lot of good stuff as a test team over a period of time, and it’s about trying to take all the good stuff that we’ve been doing, try to continue doing that, and for me, it’s just about putting my spin on things.

“That may look different; it may look slightly the same, but we’ll wait and see. It’s not going to change overnight.

“We actually did some really good things in Sri Lanka. We fell on the wrong side of the results, but there were some good things that we did there.

“The approach that we had with the bat – apart from that that one innings – I thought we played really well. It’s about continuing that as much as we can and trying to play a brand that that we’re proud of playing.”

Black Caps schedule:
1st test: October 16-20, M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru
2nd test: October 24-28, MCA Stadium, Pune
3rd test: November 1-5, Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission