Latham 80 lifts New Zealand’s lead towards 250

Tea: New Zealand 271 and 181 for 3 (Taylor 37*, Nicholls 9*) lead Pakistan 216 by 236 runsLive scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Tom Latham’s 80 led a strong top-order performance that stretched New Zealand’s lead to 235 by tea on day four of the Hamilton Test. Latham added 96 for the second wicket with Kane Williamson and 52 for the third with Ross Taylor before Wahab Riaz bounced him out during the course of a fiery second spell. With the ball rearing towards his head and cramping him for room, Latham flung his hands up and popped a catch to the wicketkeeper off his top glove.

Wahab should have had the wicket of Henry Nicholls as well. New to the crease, Nicholls’ footwork was severely tested by Wahab’s pace, and he edged him past second slip’s left hand before playing and missing with feet rooted to the spot. In his next over, he took on the short ball, and just about cleared the leaping long leg fielder with a hurried hook. For some reason, Sohail Khan was standing some ten yards inside the boundary rather than on the rope, where the chance would have been fairly straightforward.

With Imran Khan finding inward movement and bounce to rap Ross Taylor on the glove, New Zealand ended the second session in some discomfort though they were in an excellent position in terms of match situation, with four sessions remaining and seven wickets in hand. There was still a bit of seam movement and bounce available from the Seddon Park pitch, though nothing like the help it was offering the seamers on the first two days.

Given how much the conditions had eased out, Pakistan’s four seamers bowled as well as they could …

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