Tom Latham’s plan for New Zealand against India: No fear, take it to them

New Zealand’s newly-appointed Test captain, Tom Latham, has urged his team to adopt a fearless approach as they prepare for a three-match series against India.

Latham, who took over the captaincy after Tim Southee stepped down following the recent series against Sri Lanka, aims to steer the team out of a tough stretch of four consecutive World Test Championship losses, which have effectively dashed their hopes of reaching the final.

Latham’s first challenge as full-time skipper will be leading the Black Caps in India, with matches scheduled in Bengaluru, Pune, and Mumbai over the next three weeks. Historically, New Zealand has struggled in India, securing just two Test wins in 36 matches, with the last victories coming in 1969 in Nagpur and 1988 in Mumbai. As quoted by ESPNCricinfo, Latham said that he is hoping the Blackcaps will play with a bit of freedom and attempt to take the game to the Indian side.

The New Zealand captain said that his players have got plans ready for the series and will be aiming to fine tune those things.

“From my point of view it’s about trying to continue doing the good stuff we’ve been doing, trying to put my spin on things,” Latham said. “It’s an exciting challenging going over to India and once we can go over there hopefully [we can] play with a bit of freedom, bit of no fear and try and take it to them. If we do that hopefully gives ourselves a good chance.

“Think in India we’ve seen teams that have done well out 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. We’ll decide on how we want to play when we get over there, but guys have got plans around how they like to approach things and hopefully we can fine tune those.”

Leaning on past experiences
Latham has previously captained New Zealand’s Test team in nine matches, stepping in for Kane Williamson between 2020 and 2022. Now, as the full-time captain, he is aiming to encourage the players to be themselves and make the leaders within the group.

“Will certainly be leaning on those experiences,” he said. “Obviously a different situation being full-time where you can put your own spin on things but think what I want to do is encourage guys to be themselves, be leaders amongst themselves as well and hopefully if we can do that we can play the brand of cricket we want to play.”

The first match between India and New Zealand will start on October 16 in Bengaluru.