Latham uses 'silly season' to prepare for Africa

The last time New Zealand opener Tom Latham was in Africa, in 2015, he scored his maiden ODI hundred in Zimbabwe and struck three successive half-centuries in South Africa. Now back in South Africa for a training camp ahead of the Tests in Zimbabwe, New Zealand will play an international match after a gap of nearly four months.

Latham, however, has just had a busy county season in England. He played for Kent in all three formats in the "silly season" to warm-up for New Zealand's packed schedule, which includes tours of Africa and India before they host Pakistan, Bangladesh and South Africa.

"I wanted to be playing leading into this tour, so it's certainly going to be beneficial instead of coming from indoor nets - playing outdoors and being used to grass wickets," Latham said after arriving in Pretoria. "For me now it's about adjusting to the conditions here instead of having to get used to batting on grass.

"Before I came over, we played 22 out of 24 days, so that's without training, that's just playing days. That's just the amount of cricket you play, they call it the 'silly season' over there."

Latham did not complain about the fixtures and instead said that such a phase helped batsmen more than bowlers, and that it had kept him occupied.

"You obviously play a lot of cricket in a short amount of time. It's a good thing as a batter I guess, but bowlers sort of struggle a little bit with the workload, and how much cricket you play.

"I suppose as a batter you can't get too down if you don't score runs, because you get three or four bats a week, which is a good thing. I suppose that's the biggest thing and you try to learn from that. When you don't necessarily train that much, how you prepare for a game - that's the sort of thing I learnt from my stint there."

Latham played six first-class matches in England and scored 374 runs with four fifties at an average of 46.75. He did not have as much success in limited-overs matches though. In two 50-over games, he scored 9 and 7, and seven T20 matches fetched him 128 runs at an average of 21.33. Latham said the stint was not just to warm-up during the lean New Zealand winter season but to also prepare for the long run.

"Certainly a beneficial couple of months for me just to get used to English conditions and we have a couple of tours coming up there in the next couple of years. I certainly enjoyed my time there, but I'm looking forward to what we've got coming up now."

New Zealand play the first of two Tests against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo from July 28.