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The two best Test sides in the world are very different but alike in one key aspect – and that sets them apart from England
An email comes from a reader in New Zealand. She had read what Tom Latham said about his side’s “brand of cricket” after the Edgbaston Test, and wanted to share a story she thought might help make his point for him. It was about the time she joined her family at a one-day game at the Basin Reserve in Wellington. “I discovered my seven-year-old talking to Neil Wagner on the sidelines. It turned out they had been chatting together for over an hour. And Wagner was in no rush to get back to the dressing room. He said how impressed he was by the little guy’s cricket knowledge and seemed genuinely to have been enjoying himself.”
It’s not just Wagner. Last week she and her two boys went through New Zealand’s Test squad and realised that between them they had met every one of them, at matches, or training sessions, or sponsors’ events. “I think this is part of what Tom Latham meant when he said that the team wanted to play cricket their own way,” she wrote. “They are generous, humble and unselfish, even when the cameras aren’t watching.” Continue reading...