Jeevan allowed England to emerge from the first innings of the match with a lead of 151. They were able to cash in four days, chasing a slight target of 104 to take a 1-0 series lead.
Players from both sides struggled to clearly see the ball at Hagley Oval, especially packed with grass banks as they were all in four days. But Latham refused to use as an excuse for his disappointing performance in the area.
“I don’t think it’s something that requires work,” said the skipper, who was guilty of opening Ben Docket on 23 (who went to score 46 runs) and Brooke on 41 on two days.
“We certainly work behind the curtain, the days of training, the kind of thing. It is definitely not a constant thing that is happening. This is just one of those games – sometimes when someone below Going, they all keep falling.
“Sometimes, some grounds have different challenges with different backgrounds. From our perspective, we are not looking for excuses.
“We know that we need to be better and we will expect it to do so in Wellington.”
It was a widely rejected performance from black caps. Ben Stokes placed to bat after winning the toss, they reached 39 for 3 before falling out of 348. But for Kane Williamson’s 93 and 58 from Glen Philips, it could have been worse. Then came the catch issues, which in turn allowed England to re -create their first innings for 3 to 3, then 71 for 71.
Latham said that the team has a lot before the second Test of Friday in the Basin Reserve. But they feel that the difference of England’s victory, wrapped within four days, did not reflect a difference in quality between the two sides.
“For 70 for 4 with your tail, if we take some catches – definitely involve ourselves – things can look a bit different,” Latham said.
“Even though the result of the game looks quite large, but a game of cricket has small margins, and unfortunately, things do not fall correctly. In any way to try – boys are not trying and some Day, this is just cricket – this is the game we play – unfortunately such things happen.
Williamson was dropped to return to Williamson despite his player performance during the 3–0 win in Will Young, 3–0 in India. Which remains to be seen.
“I definitely believe that Tom is our best wicketkeeper-batsman in the country. And we definitely believe him to support his natural game.
“You are away from being back in form. He is working behind the curtain as much as anyone. We definitely know for him that the results are not far away.”
Vithishan is a collaborative editor in Ihanhantrajah Espncricinfo
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