Tom Latham comes across as a traditional Test player in the midst of a New Zealand batting line-up that is unafraid to play shots.
New Zealand's young left-handed opener Tom Latham caught the eye with some impressive footwork, unafraid to sweep the Indian spinners in the first innings of the first Test in Kanpur en route to a well-compiled 58. However, he was trapped in front by Ravichandran Ashwin for just two in the second innings.
The 24-year-old is the son of Rod Latham, who played four Tests and 33 ODIs in the early 1990s as an explosive opening batsman, forming an attacking pair with Mark Greatbatch, much before the slam-bang approach came into vogue in ODIs through Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana of Sri Lanka.
However, young Tom is not in a hurry to score runs like his father tried. He comes across as a traditional Test player in the midst of a New Zealand batting line-up that is unafraid to play shots.
The onus to get a good start lies on Latham, especially after his partner, Martin Guptill, has been woefully out of runs. Does it make his task that much more difficult?
Latham, who has himself been through rough patches in his 23-Test career, said here on Thursday: "Gup hasn't scored the amount of runs he has wanted to. Like all of us, he is working extremely hard in the nets to rectify that. In the first innings (21 runs in Kanpur), he showed a lot of intent and we got off to a reasonably good start. If he had kicked on, then you never know. We are all, Gup, myself, everyone in the team are all working really hard to try and perform for this team.
"I'm susceptible to getting out early as well, that is just the nature of cricket. Hopefully if Gup gets a chance tomorrow (Friday), he can put a good score on the board."
Opening the batting has never been easy for visiting sides in Indian conditions. Latham agreed: "It is slightly different to conditions back home and it doesn't necessarily seam around as much. We have to adapt quickly and if we can build partnerships early on and not lose wickets in clumps, then we can put a good score on the board."
Latham, who has five hundreds and an average of 38.42 since his debut against India in Wellington in early 2014, said his approach to batting in sub-continent does not change. "You have to do all the cliché things you need to do at the start of an innings. We weren't too far away in the first Test. We just need to do things for a little bit longer. If we can do that with bat and ball, it will give us a good chance in this match."
Latham used the sweep shots effectively against the Indian spinners but had a lot of respect for Ashwin, to whom he fell LBW in both the innings.
"That is the beauty of Ashwin, he is a world-class bowler and he showed that," Tom said. "The subtle natural variations he has are hopefully something we can pick up on a bit quicker. For me, the straight one is the danger ball that is possibly going to get me out.
"That said, both Ashwin and Jadeja are world-class bowlers and they bowl a lot of overs in these conditions. If we can keep making those good decisions for longer, hopefully we can put a good score on the board or if we are chasing in the last innings we can chase (the total) down," he added.
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