“From my point of view it’s about trying to continue doing the good stuff we’ve been doing, trying to put my spin on things,” Latham said. “It’s an exciting challenging going over to India and once we can go over there hopefully [we can] play with a bit of freedom, bit of no fear and try and take it to them. If we do that hopefully gives ourselves a good chance.
“Think in India we’ve seen teams that have done well out there in the past have been quite aggressive towards them, especially with the bat they’ve looked to play a few shots, but also put them under pressure which is really important over there rather than sitting and waiting for something to happen. We’ll decide on how we want to play when we get over there, but guys have got plans around how they like to approach things and hopefully we can fine tune those.”
“We actually did some really good things in Sri Lanka,” Latham added. “We fell on the wrong sides of the results but there were some good things. The approach we had with the bat, apart from that one innings I thought we played really well. So it’s about continuing that as much as we can and trying to play a brand that we are proud of playing and if we do that hopefully it gives us a good chance.”
Latham has previously led the Test side on nine occasions as a stand-in for Kane Williamson between 2020 and 2022 but now has the opportunity to leave a more permanent mark in the role.
“Will certainly be leaning on those experiences,” he said. “Obviously a different situation being full-time where you can put your own spin on things but think what I want to do is encourage guys to be themselves, be leaders amongst themselves as well and hopefully if we can do that we can play the brand of cricket we want to play.”
“He’ll have a similar role that he has always had whether it’s as captain or in the past, someone like that who has a wealth of experience, a wealth of knowledge in all conditions and he’s done it for many years and has been successful. We’ll certainly be tapping into his mind, his ideas, so looking forward to it.”