7 min readOct 28, 2024 08:48 AM IST
First published on: Oct 27, 2024 at 05:58 PM IST
Steady The Ship, the Kane Williamson cheer group that drowns pints of beer in their ubiquitous sailor hats and revels in the stands, calls Tom Latham Dave Franco, because the cricketer uncannily resembles the Hollywood actor and director best known for his support roles. The nickname has soared to cult realm in New Zealand, so much so that someone walking along the street would call him Dave Franco, and he would turn back. Or so the myth travels.
For a decade, he has been the dutiful apprentice and sidekick to Kane Williamson. The man performing his multiple functions in the shadows of arguably his country’s greatest cricketer. Latham has been the eternal stand-in, multi-utility cricketer. A stop gap opener in Tests before he became a regular; a makeshift wicket-keeper; a stand-in captain before he became the real one. In white-ball cricket, he has batted from one to eight; he was once thrust T20I captaincy from wilderness. He has donned the roles of blunting the new ball to shredding the old ball; he has been their middle-over bulwark as well as their lower-order finisher. Once, he has humbly told Otago Daily: “I was the youngest one in most of the teams I had played and so I was often asked to do everything. And I would do those.”
Maybe, it’s the resourcefulness you naturally ingrain when you are one of the smallest countries in the world, with one of the slightest budgets and the sparsest player pool. There was another reason why his childhood coach Neil Fletcher says he was dispensed with many chores. “It’s because he was gifted and he gave his 100 percent to whatever he did. He took the game very seriously, and that’s why he has built such a successful career. He’s always had a really good understanding of his own game. At an early age, that was quite visible ahead of players his own age. And he hits more balls than anyone. There’s no secret to his success,” he says.
He was only 14 when he began opening for his club Burnside West University. Just when the team reached the ground, the coach realised that Shane Bond, on his recovery road to the national team after an injury, was in the rival team. Fletcher was frightened and decided to push him down the order. But Latham told him: “Don’t worry coach, one day or the other I have to face bowlers as fast as him,” he told him. The coach was still reluctant, before Tom’s father Rod, a former international opener himself, assured him: “Let’s see if he’s got the stuff… If he’s not good enough, maybe, he needs to rethink his future.”
Rod, a buccaneering opener and dibbly-dobbly artiste, was never a pushy father. He didn’t introduce him to cricket either. “So after retiring from international cricket, I began working at a sports shop in Christchurch and when he was around 4-5, my employer presented Tom with a cut-down cricket bat. I was surprised he picked it up left-handed,” Rod had told stuff.co.nz.
Soon, his son showed he was good enough. When he took guard, one of the fielders sledged him. “Something like, have you carried enough nappies or do you have a feeding bottle, some silly stuff. But Tom hardly listened to all this rubbish. He was just waiting for the biggest moment of his life. He even snatched the strike from his senior partner,” says Fletcher. Unfazed, Latham stroked an unbeaten 92. Marvelled, Bond gave him an autographed ball. He told his father: “Brave lad, I’m sure he will be a Black Cap like you.”
Not just another Black Cap, but the first captain of his country to win a Test series in India. He inhabits a rarified space alongside Adam Gilchrist and Alastair Cook, the other two captains who have conquered India at home. Go back further, bigger names descend, Imran Khan, Clive Lloyd. Latham doesn’t strut with the aura of them, each a legend of the game. Two of the greatest batsmen of their time, two of the all-time great captains. Latham might not scale the heights they have; he is just one among his teammates. That is the brand of his captaincy too.
He is nearly invisible on the field. He let the bowlers be themselves, he helps them set the field. But doesn’t impose himself on the field. He lets the batsmen play their natural game. He rarely yells or shouts, or even picks an argument with the umpire. At times, he looks like Williamson without the mendicant’s beard, similarly composed. His blueprint is simple: “What I want to do is to encourage the guys to be themselves, be leaders amongst themselves as well. If we can do that we can play the brand of cricket we want to play.”
The turnaround he has inspired was swift. From losing 2-0 to an eternally in flux Sri Lanka to leading a powerful India 2-0. In Sri Lanka, they had looked like a rusty bunch of ragtag individuals rather than a robust team. Now, they seem like a world-beating team in progress. Everyone wants to perform to their optimal potential. Mitchell Santner braved his side soreness in the second innings. But Latham shies away from limelight.
In that sense, he has forged a team in his image, a group willing to stretch the limits of their talent, a bunch with clear plans and steel to execute those. There were no frills about them, they were spectacularly unspectacular, but there is an inner streak of aggression and resoluteness.“We’ve wanted to fire a shot. We’ve wanted to be the one that puts India under pressure, what that may look like from a batting point of view or a bowling point of view,” Latham said in his press conference. It was one of the rare instances when he sounded emphatic.
The Lathams would now be referred in as reverential tones as the New Zealanders would the Hadlees and Crowes and Bracewells, the elite sporting families of the country. Perhaps, even better, because Tom Latham has achieved what no other New Zealand captain ever had. Dave Franco, though, would have the halo of Russell Crowe, New Zealand’s finest export to Hollywood.
New Zealand's captain Tom Latham celebrates his half century on the second day of the second test cricket match between India and New Zealand, at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, in Pune, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (PTI Photo) 
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