Mumbai, Nov 4: With a historic series victory against India secured, New Zealand captain Tom Latham on Sunday said the true magnitude of this achievement would only “sink in” once they’re back home.New Zealand outplayed the host on its home soil across three Tests to bring an end to its unbeaten run in 18 series at home across last 12 years.
“It’s been a huge achievement, after the first (Test) it was obviously pretty special; the second one to win a series was even more special,” Latham told the reporters here.
“We spoke about coming here and trying to adapt as much as we can and to be in this position (of winning) 3-0, it’s certainly a series that I’ll never forget.”
“We’ll obviously celebrate as a group together and the next couple of days before we head home. It’s certainly been an amazing series to be a part of… It will sink in a little bit more when we get home and once the dust settles a little bit,” he said.
It’s obviously a great moment for New Zealand cricket, probably one of New Zealand cricket’s greatest series wins,” he added.
Latham said winning tosses in two of the three Tests was also instrumental in the series win.
“We managed to fall on the right side of a couple of tosses and in doing that we managed to put runs on the board in the last couple of games,” he said.
“When you’re chasing scores, from our point of view, runs on the board are really important and some of these surfaces that we’ve played on have been really hard and they certainly haven’t got easier from a batting point of view,” he added.
Latham said he did not believe New Zealand would win the game as long as Rishabh Pant was at the crease. Pant blasted nine fours and one six to make 64 off 57 balls to wage a lone battle for India in its 147-run chase.
“With Rishabh still there, I certainly didn’t believe that the game was over. They (India) have match winners throughout their side and they’ve been successful playing the way that they’ve been playing for a long period of time,” he said.