Defeated New Zealand captain Tom Latham insisted on Sunday that his side did not need extra fielding practice, despite dropping eight catches in the first Test as England romped to an eight-wicket win.
Latham dropped three chances himself as the game slipped through the host’s fingers, with the skipper describing the errors as “unfortunate.” It allowed Harry Brook to star with 171 as England took a crucial lead of 151 on first innings.
Brook, Ben Stokes, Ben Duckett and Brydon Carse were all dropped and then added a combined 231 runs after their reprieves.
“To take some catches, myself included, things might have looked slightly different,” Latham said after his New Zealand side were brought crashing down to earth after the euphoria of their recent historic 3-0 series win in India.
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“Even though the result of the game does look quite big there are small margins in the game of cricket and unfortunately it did not fall right.”
Latham said there was no need for New Zealand to take special steps to rectify their fielding issues before the second Test begins in Wellington on Friday.
“I don’t think that’s something that requires work,” he said. “We try not to over-emphasise things. We know we need to be better and we’ll hopefully do that in Wellington.”
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