New Zealand captain stroked 140* before bowlers rallied to bowl Netherlands out cheaply
New Zealand 264 for 9 (Latham 140*, van Beek 4-56, Klaassen 3-36) beat Netherlands 146 all out (de Leede 37, M Bracewell 3-13, Sodhi 2-17) by 118 runs
Vikramjit hit seven in his knock of 31, displaying an array of shots in the process: from the punch to the pull, from the slice to the slash. But once he deposited a Colin de Grandhomme full toss – a slower delivery bowled at 98kph – to long-on, the wheels soon started to come off for Netherlands.
What was 81 for 2 at one stage became 146 all out, with Michael Bracewell grabbing three of the wickets to fall, two of those with an offspinner’s dream deliveries. He looped one up wide outside off to lure Pieter Seelaar to drive, as the Netherlands captain got forward only to see the ball turn back in sharply to hit off stump.
Michael Bracewell continued dealing with flight, dip and turn when he had Michael Rippon stumped off an identical delivery, with Latham behind having all the time in the world to whip the bails off.
But it was earlier in the day that Latham gradually dragged the game away from the bowling side. Watching from the dressing room, he saw Logan van Beek and Fred Klaassen rule with the ball after Netherlands had elected to bowl first on a brown-looking pitch.
Despite his side being in trouble, Latham kept ticking the scoreboard by rotating the strike as well as striking the occasional boundary in the company of de Grandhomme, who played a more sedate role. By the 23rd over, when the latter departed after a brief recovery for a 40-ball 16, Latham had already reached 37 off 42 balls, never allowing the Netherlands’ bowlers to capitalise on the momentum by being content to just see them off and holding one end up.
He next got an able partner in Michael’s cousin Doug Bracewell, who took after a quiet start of 9 from 23 deliveries. When he fell for a more-than-handy 41 off 51 balls in the 40th over, New Zealand still had only 179 on the board with just three wickets remaining.
But Latham was in no mood to give up. After having added 90 with Doug Bracewell, he put on 42 with Ish Sodhi, racing to his sixth ODI hundred on the way, which came from his 101st delivery. The last six overs yielded 61 for the hosts, with their captain pressing the accelerator by clobbering five sixes and a four.
Who knew what kind of day his 30th birthday would turn out to be?
Himanshu Agrawal is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo