Black Caps v West Indies cricket: Kane Williamson leads dominant display on day one as Tom Latham joins ‘best club ever’

Kane Williamson fought the conditions, a West Indies test attack and for long periods of time, but together with Tom Latham he has put his team on pole position to win the first test of the summer.

That may seem like a premature decision after just two sessions, albeit lengthy sessions, of a five-day trial, but barring the launch, everything seems to have fallen in New Zealand’s way from day one.

Winning the pitch and the bowl felt like the easiest path to victory, but there is often greater satisfaction in taking the hard path.

That will be the attitude New Zealand will take for the rest of this match after they were inserted into a wicket that brought together all the classic aesthetics of a green top and finished a rain-stricken first day 243-2 after 78 soaking overs.

Williamson, as is often the case in this field, was at the center of it all, finishing the day at 97. It wasn’t his smoothest inning and he played and missed more times than he normally would in a series, but he’s still there. within touching distance of its 22nd century test.

On Friday he will be joined by Ross Taylor, who also scores runs on this terrain as a matter of habit, who is 31.

This wasn’t a day for the sport to gain new fans, but it was cricket porn for purists.

After the early dismissal of rookie Will Young, the 280th man to represent the Black Caps in tryouts, two of New Zealand’s best (yes, time to put Tom Latham in that category) went to work.

The joust of Williamson’s first session with Shannon Gabriel was something to behold. The bowler was quick, accurate, and mean. The batter was, well, williamsony: a goofy adjective that cricket fans will know immediately means “serene technical excellence.”

Gabriel was hitting the mid-140s regularly and his angle to the batter can be awkward, but Williamson got off the line effectively and got on top of the ball enough to hit the odd boundary.

Immediately after tea, Williamson had another fight, this time with his opposite Jason Holder. This time he didn’t have all the answers and the West Indies skipper was hitting the bat regularly and saw that two genuine nicks did not meet his mistakes.

If anything, Latham’s technique was even more solid than his captain’s. He went and went and left and waited for the Windies to come to him. When they fell short, he pulled undeterred for the two men on the fence. He’d been in this field before, but it didn’t seem like the wisest use of a wicket that offered lateral movement outside the seam.

While Williamson sat out at 49 for what seemed like forever, 24 balls to be precise, Latham looked like he was playing a different game, going through the midwicket and sliding the ball on either side of the point.

It came as a surprise when Kemar Roach, playing just days after his father’s death, ended the 154-race partnership by placing one between bat and pad and rattling Latham’s stumps.

Taylor lit a boundary on his first ball and looked for the most part calm.

It looked so different when the Windies won the draw and inserted New Zealand.

Young wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t looked at the color of the strip and hoped to spend his opening hours as a test cricketer on the field.

Instead, he passed 11 strained balls into the wicket. In that time, he survived one leg prior to revision, hit one at an achievable height between goalkeeper Shane Dowrich, who had a terrible day, and the first slip, he was knocked off the stump and finally caught so dead in the front that a mid-square conference to discuss the merits of a review with Latham was not required.

That was the high point for the Windies, though they can make a strong argument that their bowling alley deserved more.

Gabriel, as mentioned, was hostile, and Holder will play much worse than today and finish with much better numbers. This is life.

They will need fast terrain on the second day to have a realistic chance of returning to this match.

Also, the formula is quite simple for New Zealand: beat most of the day. A new ball is expected in two turns and will almost certainly be fired.

It’s possible to weather that particular storm and a huge total – a total that you only need to hit once if everything goes according to plan.