Tom Latham and Devon Conway rekindled New Zealand’s hopes with fighting fifties, helping the home side to 128 for no loss at Tea on the third day’s play at the Basin Reserve in Wellington.
The openers brought down New Zealand’s deficit to 98 runs after getting bundled out for 209 in the first innings and following on. They managed to find the odd boundary, but there were no signs of an attacking approach, unlike the method Tim Southee had employed successfully earlier in the day. Through the course of his 83, Latham even past the 5000-run mark in Test cricket.
The solid 149-run partnership was broken early in the final session as Jack Leach found extra bounce and spin to elicit a bat-pad catch from Devon Conway. One brought two as Tom Latham missed a sweep to be rapped in front of the stumps by Joe Root, who was so sure of the fact that the ball was heading onto the stumps that he broke into a celebrappeal, a cocksure manner of appealing often adopted by his teammate Stuart Broad.
Latham is dismissed ☝️
Joe Root has been watching too much of Stuart Broad with that celebrappeal 😍
England with a great start after the tea interval…#NZvENG pic.twitter.com/6dVCYURLSl
— Cricket on BT Sport (@btsportcricket) February 26, 2023
