Raval and Latham hundreds set up New Zealand's dominance

Jeet Raval and Tom Latham put down the strongest foundation possible, on which Kane Williamson built steadily with help from Henry Nicholls as New Zealand dominated the second day in Hamilton. Three of their four wickets came from Bangladesh's part-timers as none of their specialist bowlers put together a spell to talk about.

Raval, who made his maiden Test hundred and Latham, who made his fourth 150-plus score, put together 254 for the opening stand. Then Williamson, unbeaten on 93 at the close, added 100 for the fourth wicket with Nicholls, who chipped in with a half-century filled with pretty shots. The stand put together by Raval and Latham was the third highest in New Zealand's Test history.

They began the second morning just as they had ended the first day, with total dominance. Raval pushed the scoring rate with regular boundaries in the first hour, before moving into the nineties with a superbly timed boundary off Khaled Ahmed. The century was reached soon afterwards from 163 balls with a pull off Ebadot Hossain. He also reached 1000 Test runs off the same ball.

Within the first seven overs of the post-lunch session Latham, who had been dropped second ball yesterday evening, also reached his hundred off 170 balls, albeit a little fortunately with a top edged pull off Abu Jayed. Until that point, Latham had scored half his boundaries in the straight arc, between mid-on and mid-off, and the other half through point and square-leg.

Raval also kept up the pressure from his end, hitting Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Ebadot for boundaries, the second a delightful dab between wide slip and gully. But he fell to Mahmudullah in the 70th over, skying a catch to Khaled at midwicket, to give the visitors at least something to smile. Raval had struck 19 fours and a six in his knock that spanned just over five hours.

The wicket hardly affected Latham who continued to cut, pull and loft spin and pace with ease, as he entered an impressive New Zealand club of batsmen to have crossed 150 for four or more times. Soon after the tea break, however, Mohammad Mithun grabbed an excellent chance at a wide slip when Latham tried to slash Soumya Sarkar to third man, bringing an end an innings that spanned 248 balls in just over six hours at the crease

Soumya shared the second new ball in an interesting move and it paid off when he had Ross Taylor lbw for 4 with a delivery that moved into his front pad as Taylor tried playing around it.

But the New Zealand batting line-up is full of steady hands, Williamson and Nicholls took over the innings building duty, initially with a little more caution but the pace never slowed that much. Nicholls found boundaries within a short time, including a late cut, straight drive, cover drive and a pick-up through midwicket that really stood out.

During all this time, Williamson accumulated another Test fifty without much fuss. There were the driven boundaries through mid-off as well as well-timed square cuts, but his approach was more of a background guy. He was missed on 81 when he edged Mehidy fine of Soumya at slip, a tough chance but the fielder appeared a little slow to react.

At the end of a day of toil, Mehidy claimed his first wicket with delivery that held its line and bowled Nicholls who didn't offer a shot. It brought a smile to some of the Bangladesh faces, although it was one tough outing and they found themselves well behind New Zealand.