With a historic series victory against India secured, New Zealand captain Tom Latham on Sunday said the true magnitude of this achievement would only "sink in" once they're back home. (More Cricket News)
New Zealand outplayed the hosts on their home soil across three Tests to bring an end to their unbeaten run in 18 series at home across last 12 years.
After beating India by eight wickets on a seaming wicket in Bengaluru in the first Test, New Zealand won on spin-friendly pitches in Pune and Mumbai by 113 runs and 25 runs respectively.
“It's been a massive achievement, after the first (Test) it was obviously pretty special; the second one to win a series was even more special,” Latham told the reporters here.
“We spoke about coming here and trying to adapt as much as we can and to be in this position (of winning) 3-0, it's certainly a series that I'll never forget.”
“We'll obviously celebrate as a group together over tonight and the next couple of days before we head home. It's certainly been an amazing series to be a part of... It will sink in a little bit more when we get home and once the dust settles a little bit,” he said.
“It's obviously a great moment for New Zealand cricket, probably one of New Zealand cricket's greatest series wins,” he added.
Latham said winning tosses in two of the three Tests was also instrumental in their series win.
“We managed to fall on the right side of a couple of tosses and in doing that we managed to put runs on the board in the last couple of games,” he said.
“When you're chasing scores, from our point of view, runs on the board are really important and some of these surfaces that we've played on have been really hard and they certainly haven't got easier from a batting point of view,” he added.
Latham said he did not believe New Zealand would win the game as long as Rishabh Pant was at the crease.
Pant blasted nine fours and one six to make 64 off 59 balls to wage a lone battle for India in their 147-run chase.
“With Rishabh still there, I certainly didn't believe that the game was over. They (India) have match winners throughout their side and they've been successful playing the way that they've been playing for a long period of time,” he said.
“We knew today India were going to come hard and they did that in Pune and they did that again today and we obviously managed to get the results, which was really nice,” he said.
However, Latham said New Zealand players heard two noises when Pant came down to defend a delivery off Ajaz Patel and was contentiously declared out -- a dismissal that effectively gave New Zealand the win.
“A few of us heard two noises. When you're in that situation, you leave it up to the umpire's hands.
We can't necessarily see the footage that the third umpire gets, so that's certainly out of our control in terms of what that may look like,” he said.
“We heard a couple of noises and decided to take the review and it fell on the right side for us so, that's up to the umpires, it's out of our control,” Latham added.
Latham lauded Glenn Phillips for his impact with the ball as the part-timer formed a lethal pair with specialist spinners Mitchell Santner in Pune and Ajaz Patel in Mumbai to set up the wins, while taking eight wickets in three Tests.
“We're lucky with two guys in our top six that are able to bowl,” he said.
“Rachin (Ravindra) didn’t play a massive part with the ball this series but having Glenn, who can bat (at No) 7 and bowl some off-spins — not long ago he was a wicket-keeper so he's come a long way over the last couple of years.
“He's someone that loves bowling, loves trying to get better not also as bowling but also as batting, the way yesterday he came out and tried to counter-punch the Indian attack, he managed to get 20 or 30 pretty quickly.”
“Sometimes, runs on these surfaces are more important than time so he's obviously played a massive part in our squad over the last couple of years,” Latham added.
