The New Zealand cricket team were completely outplayed by England in the 3rd ODI as losing the match by a whooping margin of 181 runs is quite unacceptable in modern cricket. Interim skipper Tom Latham had a forgettable outing with the bat in hand. Tom Latham was dismissed on 3 runs in 12 balls as he looked in all sorts of trouble.
New Zealand’s batters looked quite afraid of the steep run chase of 369 as the likes of Will Young & Devon Conway were quite defensive in their approach. New Zealand lost 3 wickets in the powerplay overs and managed to score only 36 runs which hurt them a lot.
We must give credit to England’s bowlers who bowled straight and wicket to wicket and didn’t give room to the batters. Chris Woakes bowled pinpoint deliveries and reaped the rewards for it as he ended the match with the figures of 3 wickets and conceded 31 runs in his 8 over spell.
Reality check for Tom Latham & Side
The side is badly missing the services of the skipper Kane Williamson who is nursing a knee injury sustained during IPL 2023. Tom Latham’s tactics were questionable as he panicked when Ben Stokes & Dawid Malan unleashed attack on the opposition and in that scenario Kane Williamson would have been attacking and would have made things happen.
The batters should have shown some sort of fight as the side not only got bundled out for 187 runs but that too in only 39 overs. The likes of Daryl Mitchell & Henry Nicholls should have laid the foundation for the rest of the batters as we have seen in the recent past that chasing 10 runs per over in the last 10 overs is not a big ask.
With England leading the ODI series by 2-1, the Kiwis will have to pull up their socks and start afresh as the next contest is on 15th September at Lord’s and it is assumed that the wicket would be sporting but given how England’s batters are playing, we can expect another high scoring encounter.
Perhaps, skipper Tom Latham should open the batting as the youngster Will Young is not able to dictate the terms. We all have seen that how Tom Latham can build a strong foundation for the batters. It looks unlikely that there would be a change in the batting line up but the batters need to up the ante if they want to end the tour on a high.