*Official* New Zealand tour of India 2024

[PlayerComparisons]

Course he does. I'd love him to play, score runs, and give a finger to the disrespectful 'oh there goes Kane ducking another series' rubbish

Didn’t he play the WTC final and T20WC final that year with an injured elbow? He performed really well in them too.

 

[jcas0167]

Yeah, he's had a chronic elbow problem for several years.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

I'm still kinda just stunned that we won this series. I would have given us barely 1 in 1000 odds two weeks ago.

Firstly, the NZ team should celebrate long and hard and feel enormously satisfied at what they've achieved. This is something historic.

A one-off T20 win against an (expected-to-be) much better side would be one thing, but to win two test matches against overwhelming odds in foreign conditions like this is almost enough to make you want to throw out every single thing you thought you knew about the game. At first it's almost incomprehensible and is yet another sign of the impending apocalypse. The tooth fairy exists.

But, have to put together a collection of thoughts that would've still made sense pre-series, and try to understand it somehow:
- On rare occasions, Indian conditions are helpful to swing bowling.
- Indian pitches occasionally have bounce for the seamers, too.
- O'Rourke can surprise people.
- In theory, the core of the Indian batting is in decline, though there's an enormous weight of runs behind Rohit & Kohli and they're playing at home.
- Conway is a good player underneath his poor form of the last 18 months.
- Rachin could be a top-tier test batsman.
- Perhaps there's some weakness in the attacking nature of India's younger batters. Though damn those batting averages are high.
- In theory, Southee can bat well... once every fifty knocks.
- Ashwin and Jadeja are getting old, though they've obliterated our batting every other tour and still have a hundred tricks up their sleeves.
- Historically Latham plays spin well, though not really for the last three years.
- In theory, we could call the toss of a coin correctly 50% of the time.
- Santner's style of spin from height should make him a threat in some conditions - ahaha this was surely the longest bow of all given his career record. More than Ashwin and Jadeja, really???
- NZ's performance in the second test in Sri Lanka was awful and just off, but perhaps they can find some spark somewhere?

Somehow the scales fell NZ's way on all of these. That's not at all the same as saying we were lucky - we absolutely did play better on the field in both tests. The only real piece of luck was the pace-friendly conditions in the first test.

So there are reasons we won, even if it all just seems so improbable.
Or, put it down to the magic of test cricket and the magic of sport, if you prefer.

Yup, sport owns

 

[Daemon]

- In theory, the core of the Indian batting is in decline, though there's an enormous weight of runs behind Rohit & Kohli and they're playing at home.

I would actually downplay the decline of the core batting as a major factor. It's been thrown about alot but I think it's overplayed and cheapens the NZ win. Besides Kohli's been awful for a long time so it's not really a new thing anyways.

We had a very very deep batting lineup in the 2nd test and they still got owned.

Yes Kohli and Rohit have looked awful, but Jaiswal, Gill, Pant, Sarfraz and even Rahul made runs recently. Those are some pretty good batsmen in Indian conditions and that's before you even get to Jadeja and Ashwin.

This was a very strong Indian side at home. Hints of cracks yes but which team doesn't have them? Most have massive craters in fact.

 

[hendrix]

I would actually downplay the decline of the core batting as a major factor. It's been thrown about alot but I think it's overplayed and cheapens the NZ win. Besides Kohli's been awful for a long time so it's not really a new thing anyways.

We had a very very deep batting lineup in the 2nd test and they still got owned.

Yes Kohli and Rohit have looked awful, but Jaiswal, Gill, Pant, Sarfraz and even Rahul made runs recently. Those are some pretty good batsmen in Indian conditions and that's before you even get to Jadeja and Ashwin.

This was a very strong Indian side at home. Hints of cracks yes but which team doesn't have them? Most have massive craters in fact.

Yeah
there were times when Bumrah was breathing fire and Sarfraz looked outrageous and then Sundar Washington has a blinder on return to the team.

It's a good side with good depth.

 

[hendrix]

One person who has not been mentioned is Rangana Herath who has been NZ's bowling coach for the tour.

If he had even the slightest influence on Santner's performance then he deserves a lot of credit.

 

[SteveNZ]

One person who has not been mentioned is Rangana Herath who has been NZ's bowling coach for the tour.

If he had even the slightest influence on Santner's performance then he deserves a lot of credit.

Old mate Steve mentioned him in the first Test in regards to how effectively we played spin at times...but yeah it'd be cool to hear how useful he's been for Santner

 

[Nintendo]

Accidentally posted this in the wrong thread, but saw an interesting graphic about the respective batting performances in the second test and the major difference was the NZ batsmen playing the ball that didn't turn much far better than India (40+ average vs 20). Santner got some uneven bounce that the Indian spinners and varied his Pace a ton more, could explain the difference?

 

[Spark]

Accidentally posted this in the wrong thread, but saw an interesting graphic about the respective batting performances in the second test and the major difference was the NZ batsmen playing the ball that didn't turn much far better than India (40+ average vs 20). Santner got some uneven bounce that the Indian spinners and varied his Pace a ton more, could explain the difference?

A lot of touring sides - well, except England - have really cottoned on to the fact that it's the ball that doesn't turn which is the truly dangerous ball in turning conditions. If you get done on the outside edge like Ravindra did first dig then, well, tough luck, but just don't miss the ****ing straight ball. I know Aus worked extremely hard on that in the leadup to last year and Herath involved in NZ's set up has almost certainly drilled it into them that that's the danger ball, because he took like half a billion wickets in exactly that manner.

 

[Bahnz]

Let no one forget, we have been demanding for years - FOR YEARS - that Latham make something more than just a handy contribution to a match/series victory. Well, he delivered here. Without Latham sticky-taping our fragile batting together in the 2nd innings, NZ most likely implode for 130 and India wins by 5 wickets. Not all heroes wear capes and not all career defining innings are hundreds. In one afternoon of largely thankless toil, Latham ascended from frustrating underachiever to NZ cricket legend, and God bless him.

 

[_Ed_]

Yeah, that innings was at least as good as any of his hundreds IMO.

 

[jcas0167]

Let no one forget, we have been demanding for years - FOR YEARS - that Latham make something more than just a handy contribution to a match/series victory. Well, he delivered here. Without Latham sticky-taping our fragile batting together in the 2nd innings, NZ most likely implode for 130 and India wins by 5 wickets. Not all heroes wear capes and not all career defining innings are hundreds. In one afternoon of largely thankless toil, Latham ascended from frustrating underachiever to NZ cricket legend, and God bless him.

The ball before his dismissal I was thinking if Latham brought up a century it would be up there with any of Kane's centuries in terms of importance.

 

[Bahnz]

The ball before his dismissal I was thinking if Latham brought up a century it would be up there with any of Kane's centuries in terms of importance.

It's also the dismissal that helps set it apart for me. Like so often Latham just finds some damn fool way to ruin a promising innings, whether it be wafting at a wide one with leaden feet, gloving an innocuous one going down the leg side or creaming a half volley straight to a fielder on the full. In this case he just got a good ball on a tough pitch. He probably deserved the benefit of the umpires doubt and in this case just got unlucky.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I would actually downplay the decline of the core batting as a major factor. It's been thrown about alot but I think it's overplayed and cheapens the NZ win. Besides Kohli's been awful for a long time so it's not really a new thing anyways.

We had a very very deep batting lineup in the 2nd test and they still got owned.

Yes Kohli and Rohit have looked awful, but Jaiswal, Gill, Pant, Sarfraz and even Rahul made runs recently. Those are some pretty good batsmen in Indian conditions and that's before you even get to Jadeja and Ashwin.

This was a very strong Indian side at home. Hints of cracks yes but which team doesn't have them? Most have massive craters in fact.

Yeah this team has been in decline for a few years but even in this period almost every team has been destroyed anyway. England came here in red hot form, faced us with guys like patidar and paddikal and still got spanked 4-1. Beating India in India with Ashwin jadeja bumrah is a huge achievement.

 

[Spark]

Yeah this team has been in decline for a few years but even in this period almost every team has been destroyed anyway. England came here in red hot form, faced us with guys like patidar and paddikal and still got spanked 4-1. Beating India in India with Ashwin jadeja bumrah is a huge achievement.

The bowling attack England rocked up with was... not good, though. The batting was in scary form, but that attack wasn't it.

 

[honestbharani]

It's also the dismissal that helps set it apart for me. Like so often Latham just finds some damn fool way to ruin a promising innings, whether it be wafting at a wide one with leaden feet, gloving an innocuous one going down the leg side or creaming a half volley straight to a fielder on the full. In this case he just got a good ball on a tough pitch. He probably deserved the benefit of the umpires doubt and in this case just got unlucky.

Wasn't he lucky to have survived a far better and closer shout first up in the 3rd over or something?

 

[Gob]

tommy lathem scoring runs in the subcontinent just doesn't make sense to me. I know he does but everything about his batting screams he shouldn't average more than 35 in the SC

 

[SteveNZ]

Let no one forget, we have been demanding for years - FOR YEARS - that Latham make something more than just a handy contribution to a match/series victory. Well, he delivered here. Without Latham sticky-taping our fragile batting together in the 2nd innings, NZ most likely implode for 130 and India wins by 5 wickets. Not all heroes wear capes and not all career defining innings are hundreds. In one afternoon of largely thankless toil, Latham ascended from frustrating underachiever to NZ cricket legend, and God bless him.

Haha, OK Sunday News.

To be fair, Latham also scored 80-odd in the England win at the Basin, which we wouldn't have won without. This one was better, obviously.

 

[SteveNZ]

It's also the dismissal that helps set it apart for me. Like so often Latham just finds some damn fool way to ruin a promising innings, whether it be wafting at a wide one with leaden feet, gloving an innocuous one going down the leg side or creaming a half volley straight to a fielder on the full. In this case he just got a good ball on a tough pitch. He probably deserved the benefit of the umpires doubt and in this case just got unlucky.

Yeah, he didn't 'do a Latham' this time which actually makes it feel note-worthy. I swear I've watched Tom Latham get out 120 different ways throughout his career, usually when he is looking completely at ease.

 

[SteveNZ]

Changing of the guard: Pune 2024 a window into New Zealand's future

Under new captain Latham, the likes of O'Rourke and Ravindra have shown what they can do, and there are others knocking on the door

www.espncricinfo.com

This article talks up a changing of the guard and a window into the future, for a team with the following ages: 32, 33, 31, 24, 33, 34, 27, 32, 35, 36 and 23.

Then the rest of the named squad members are 34, 30, 31, 30, 32 and 26.

Not the size window I'd be hoping to install with a view to anything past the 2026-27 Aussie tour. Weird angle for an article when 4 guys out of a squad of 16-17 are under 30. One of the great failings of the Stead dynasty has been forward planning, simply because very few of us think he cares about that. He's prioritised the next game, which when you win in India, can be justified, I suppose.