Sweeping India away: At Wankhede, Latham and Taylor produced a masterclass in playing spin

Tales of overseas cricketers coming to India and deciding to sweep the spinners out of the attack are plenty. There was Graham Gooch in 1987. There was Andy Flower, every time he came to India. There was Matthew Hayden, when he famously resurrected his flagging Australia career in 2001. Alastair Cook did it with nonchalance in that 2012 Test series, one of those rare glitches in India’s near-perfect recent red-ball record on home soil. While it seems straightforward on paper, not many teams end up executing the plan – easier said than done against quality spinners and all that.

But on Sunday at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, Tom Latham produced a masterclass that belongs right up there with the aforementioned names. He swept, he reverse swept and he swept some more as he took New Zealand home during a tricky chase of 281 in testing conditions in Mumbai against a team that had looked nigh unbeatable in ODIs in the past few months.

Latham, with the experienced Ross Taylor for company, put together a 200-run partnership that won’t win too many style points from a judge if it came down to artistry. But no two batsmen from either side managed to put together more than 73 runs on the day before these two batsmen joined hands. And when Ross Taylor was dismissed with the scores level, no two batsmen had a partnership bigger than theirs in the history of ODI cricket at Wankhede. No two batsmen have had a partnership bigger than theirs in the history of ODI cricket in India, when it comes to run-chases. By multiple counts, it was a truly special effort.

Latham and Taylor produced a masterclass in countering spin, overcoming draining weather conditions and in pacing a run-chase. While Virat Kohli, the opposition captain, stood and watched helplessly as the game drifted away from him, Kohli, the run-chase expert, would have been proud of the way Latham and Taylor executed their plans to perfection.

While Taylor struggled initially, Latham, was in his element from the word go. The best batsman from when the Black Caps toured India a little over a year ago – their top-order batsman – Latham was moved to the middle order for this series to provide solidity to the New Zealand batting lineup.

The New Zealand think-tank must have seen how Australia threw away positions of advantage in the recent ODI series repeatedly, because they could not capitalise on the starts provided by David Warner and Aaron Finch. In fact, losing wickets between overs 35-40 was one of the prime reasons for the 4-1 series defeat the Aussies suffered against this solid Indian team.

Thanks to their Trans-Tasman rivals’ struggles, the New Zealanders came prepared. They knew they needed a good player of spin in the middle order. They knew they needed a player with Test match pedigree – a temperament that could help see off any early wobbles. If they had to foresee a situation for Latham to shine, they could not have come up with a better scenario than what was presented to him on Sunday night.

And giving him company was Ross Taylor, who struggled the last time he was in India, failing to cross 50 in the five innings during the ODI series. He was dismissed on more than one occasion trying to be over-aggressive, trying to assert his dominance against the spinners. On Sunday, he did not let his natural instincts take over. He bided his time, did not get bogged down by the number of times the Indian spinners were beating him with flight and turn. He made 46 runs off the 54 balls he faced against spinners, hitting just two fours. That’s impressive restraint – a trait not often associated with Taylor.

While Taylor resisted, Latham kept the scoreboard ticking against Chahal and Kuldeep. He made 58 runs from the 51 balls he faced against the duo, hitting four boundaries and a six. And three of those came towards the fag end of his innings when he decided to counter cramps and fatigue by hitting the ball to the fence or over it. And as mentioned before, the sweep shot came in handy. Latham made 35 runs off 20 balls when he was sweeping either side of the wicket – a statistic that tells you all need to know.

“With the sweep shot, we were able to put pressure on the spinners and forced them to adjust their lengths. I thought he (Latham) did that outstandingly well. I told him to reverse sweep and he did it, and he kept doing it,” Taylor said after the match, confirming the Kiwis’ best laid plans.

Could India have had done something different to counter them? Could Kohli have gone to Kedar Jadhav to mix things up in the middle overs? Did India lack a Plan B when the opposition’s Plan A was working to a ‘T’? All these questions will be on Kohli’s mind as he plots a comeback in Pune and Kanpur. But in Mumbai, India came up against a determined, well-prepared opposition and when two batsmen play as well as Latham and Taylor did, you just have to doff the hats, say ‘well played, gents’ and move forward.