Mumbai, Nov 3
New Zealand captain Tom Latham on Sunday said it will take time to sink in that his team has whitewashed India 3-0 at home for the first time in its history. He said the reason for his team's success was that someone or another stood up for them when it mattered.
New Zealand shot out India for 46 on a tricky Bengaluru pitch by his seamers after Rohit Sharma had gifted them the opportunity by deciding to bat first. New Zealand won that match by seven wickets and then went on to win the second Test in Pune on a spinning track with Mitchell Santner claiming 13 wickets. With Ajaz Patel claiming 11 wickets on a rank turner, New Zealand beat India by 25 runs in a low-scoring encounter to win three in a row for the first time in India.
Latham said the feeling has not sunk in yet.
"I'm sort of 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. I guess if you asked me at the start of the tour whether I'd be in this position, I would have liked to be in this position. But yeah, to be here now and play the cricket that we've played is really special and I'm really proud of the group," said Latham, who stood in as stand-in skipper as regular leader Kane Williamson pulled out of the team as he is still recuperating from an injury.
Latham described the wicket at Bengaluru as a tricky one and that his seamers did a fantastic job on that.
"I think that wicket in Bangalore was a pretty tricky one. 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 plays, they are quite aggressive and tend to take the game on a little bit more and that's something we spoke about and something we tried to plan for.
"Even today with Rishabh (Pant) still there, I certainly didn't believe that the game was over and they have match-winners throughout their side and they've been successful playing the way that they've been playing for a long period," said Latham.
He said New Zealand were fortunate to find a hero whenever they were in trouble.
"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 certainly really proud of," he said.
He said luck also favoured them on some occasions and they managed to put runs on the board, which created pressure on India.
"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, from our point of view, runs on the board are really important and some of these surfaces.
"We knew today India were going to come hard and they did that in Pune and they did that again today and we obviously managed to get the results which was really nice," said Latham.
He praised batter Will Young for his performance and said the batter trusted in his defence.
"He probably hasn't played as much as he would have liked in terms of that backup role, but I think for him to come here and play the way he's played in Bangalore, he obviously played a really important innings in that fourth innings. But I think the way he played here on a wicket certainly wasn't easy for batters, I think he controlled our innings really nicely.
"I think he trusted his defence. He took brave options. He tried to fire a shot at them and he played fantastically well and certainly deserves the awards that he got," said Latham.