Tom Latham fine-tunes game for Black Caps tour

  • 15/07/2016
Tom Latham (Photosport)
Tom Latham (Photosport)

Tom Latham's linking up with his Black Caps teammates after a busy English summer playing in the "silly season" of county cricket.

The Black Caps opening batsman arrived in camp after a hectic schedule with English club Kent where he has been fine-tuning his form ahead of the tour of Zimbabwe and South Africa.

"You play a lot of cricket in a short amount of time, it's a good thing as a batter I guess, but bowlers sort of struggle a little bit just with the workload and how much cricket you play," said Latham.

"Just before I came over I played 22 out of 24 days, that's without trainings, it's just all playing days.

"That's the amount of cricket you play, they call it the silly season over there."

The 24-year-old said he signed on with Kent in all forms to keep on his toes ahead of the tour.

"One of the reasons I wanted to head over there was to be playing leading into this tour.

"It's certainly going to be beneficial instead of coming from indoor nets, you know, playing outdoors and used to grass wickets."

The left-handed batsman added that it was nice to accustom himself to English conditions ahead of the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy in England and Wales.

"It was certainly a beneficial couple of months for me just to get used to English conditions with a couple of tours coming up there in the next couple of years.

"I certainly enjoyed my time there, but I look forward to what we've got coming up now."

New Zealand will open their tour against Zimbabwe A next week, ahead of two Tests against Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Newshub.