Tom Latham, the interim captain of New Zealand, outlined the Kiwis’ strategy to stop Virat Kohli, who has scored three hundred in his past four ODI innings. The Blackcaps, the top-ranked team in the ODI format heading into the three-match ODI series against India and have recently defeated Pakistan 2-1.
Meanwhile, Team India has had a strong start to the home season with a victory over Sri Lanka. They won the ODI series by 3-0 ODI and the T20I series by 2-1.
With the ODI World Cup ahead in India later this year, New Zealand will look to maximize the condition more and more. Meanwhile, the New Zealand stand-in captain for the series Tom Latham has talked about the pitch and ground conditions.
“This is our last opportunity to play in these conditions before the World Cup which is not too far away. We will just try to take as many learnings as we can from these conditions. Luckily enough most of the guys have played in Indian conditions.”
Latham further added, “We are lucky we play these guys (India) a lot here or back home. We have been talking to the guys who have played in India whether in the IPL or international games, in terms of trying to read different deliveries. Spin always plays a big part in India.”
The kiwi captain also talked about the in-form Indian batter Virat Kohli who is playing some thunderous innings and his recent against Sri Lanka was an alert for everyone.
“Virat has been playing some great cricket. Looks like he is hitting the ball well. We need to plan as best as we can like we do our scouting on all those guys. We will try to make it as tough as possible for him (to score runs).”
In ODI cricket, Kohli has an outstanding record against New Zealand. In 26 innings, the former captain scored 1378 runs at an average of 59.91. When New Zealand last traveled to India for a three-match ODI series in 2017, he scored two centuries
