From Drudgery To Dignitary: How Tom Latham’s Process Powers New Zealand

Bhargav Dixit

Tom Latham celebrates eighth ODI century. [Source: @BLACKCAPS/X]Tom Latham celebrates eighth ODI century. [Source: @BLACKCAPS/X]

Story continues below ADVERTISEMENT

On paper, an average of 35.03 and a strike rate of 86.18 across 140 ODI innings isn’t exciting. In reality, Tom Latham’s process powers New Zealand more often than not.

Not known for dazzling knocks, the general cricketing populace often fail to realize Latham’s noteworthiness to his team. Just like most of them not apprehending how he made his ICC Champions Trophy debut today despite playing ODI cricket since 2012. Someone who has built a career out of doing the grunt work, individual records might never become Latham’s forte.

His forte, however, is enough for New Zealand to trust him in tense situations. Day after day. The latest example of the same was put on display during the ongoing 2025 Champions Trophy opener against Pakistan in Karachi.

Finding himself in at 73/3 in the 17th over with the likes of Kane Williamson (1) and Daryl Mitchell (10) back to the pavilion, Latham knew it was another of those days where he’d have to bide time playing conventionally dull cricket in the middle overs to lay a foundation before capitalizing on it in the form of an eighth ODI century.

Tom Latham Rotates Strike Before Dominating It

Latham, who hit a solitary boundary on the first 20 balls that he faced, ended up scoring just one more on the next 20 balls. The left-handed batter’s extraordinary skills around rotating the strike have it in them to become exemplary for modern-day middle-order batters who specialize in attempting big shots to bail themselves out of trouble.

With a well-set Will Young (107) doing his thing at the other end, Latham did what he was expected to do, i.e., provide support. Irrespective of the field of life, playing second-fiddle is easier said than done.

That being said, in a bid to generate favourable results, all you have to do sometimes is let someone else hog the limelight. Having wrapped his head around the same quite early in the innings, Latham resisted the temptation to go for fancy strokes until the third powerplay.

The fact that he managed to score 51* (27) in the last 10 overs validated his ability around converting relatively slower starts to substantial knocks with a strike rate in excess of 100. Having ended up with 118* (104) including 10 fours and three sixes, Latham was exceptional in sweeping Pakistani spinners and New Zealand’s concerns away.

As far as facing the fast bowlers was concerned, Latham nudged them along the ground for most part of his innings. Just when there was this need of scoring quick runs, Latham didn’t require a lot of time in finding boundaries to earn the distinction of being of a prototypical No. 5 batter.

Tom Latham’s 8th ODI Century In Numbers

2,059 – 26th No. 5 batter to complete 2,000 ODI runs, Latham is only the second one from New Zealand after Chris Cairns (2,443). Among active players, only a handful of them are above Latham in this list.

13 – Latham’s overall 43rd 50+ score is his 13th such in Asia. While former New Zealand captains Ross Taylor and Williamson also have the same number of 50+ individual scores in subcontinent conditions, only Nathan Astle (15) has more.

756 – Latham scoring 756 runs across 26 innings against Pakistan is only the second time when he has scored 700+ runs against an opposition in ODI cricket. He has scored 876 runs against India.

516 – Similarly, Latham’s 516 runs across 12 innings in Pakistan is also his second-highest in a visiting country. He has scored 630 ODI runs across the border in India.

75 – Having scored 2,391 runs at this point in time, Latham needs 75 more runs to become the second-highest ODI run-scorer among New Zealand wicket-keepers.