“Got wickets at crucial times, Devon and Rachin had fantastic partnership”: NZ skipper Latham after win over ENG in WC opener

Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], October 6 (ANI): Following the nine-wicket win over England in the opening match of the ICC Cricket World Cup, New Zealand skipper Tom Latham expressed happiness with the team’s all-round performance which saw them restrict the defending champions to just above 280 runs and later crush them with a double century stand between Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra.

Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra struck like a tornado with counter-attacking hundreds that left an out-of-sorts England attack bereft of ideas as New Zealand registered a nine-wicket victory against the defending champions at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Thursday.

“It is a fantastic performance. Fantastic partnership between Rachin and Devon, but it was set up at the start. Fantastic effort with the ball to restrict them to 280 on that surface, it was a total below par. Credit goes to our bowlers for that effort. Been a pretty good build-up since the warm-up games. We have played in these conditions in the last year or so, that is really important. The likes of two-seamers (Henry and Boult) did a good job on top. We knew they (England openers) were going to come hard at us. Knew they would keep coming hard at us throughout the innings. We got wickets at crucial times, guys chipped in with some crucial overs and did well to restrict them to 280-odd from the situation they were in, that was outstanding.

Our batters played, they played some outstanding shots, that was the most pleasing. The shots they played was fantastic, they reacted to what was bowled at them, certainly, that wasn’t the plan when they went out to play. Both must have felt really good when they played shots. He (Ravindra) played a fantastic innings and super proud of the way he has come out and played his best innings at that position,” said Latham in the post-match presentation.

Coming to the match, NZ elected to field first and restricted England to 282/9 in 50 overs. Joe Root (77 in 86 balls with four boundaries and a six) held the innings together with his return-to-form fifty. Skipper Jos Buttler (43 in 42 balls with two fours and two sixes) and Jonny Bairstow (33 in 35 balls with four boundaries and a six) contributed some decent knocks too.

Matt Henry (3/48) was the pick of the bowlers for the Kiwis. Mitchell Santner and Glenn Phillips also used their spin bowling to choke England’s run flow and took two wickets. Trent Boult and Ravindra got a wicket each.

In the chase of 283, NZ lost Will Young for a duck, but Conway (152* in 121 balls, with 19 fours and three sixes) and Ravindra (123* in 96 balls with 11 fours and five sixes) helped the Kiwis win with almost 14 overs in hand.

Ravindra took home the ‘Player of the Match’ award.