The Black Caps are in firm control of the first cricket Test against the West Indies after a dominant day three in Christchurch.<\/p>\n
Centuries for skipper Tom Latham and number four batter Rachin Ravindra helped New Zealand set a solid foundation to reach 417-4 at stumps with a lead of 481 runs at Hagley Oval.<\/p>\n
Close to half of the Black Caps’ runs came in boundaries today.<\/p>\n
Openers Latham and Devon Conway resumed in the morning at 32 without loss, taking their partnership to 84 before Conway went for 37.<\/p>\n
Kane Williamson joined his skipper but just before lunch would send a feather-thin edge behind off Kemar Roach to give the Windies a sniff.<\/p>\n
Roach then turned villain when he dropped Ravindra at midwicket as Latham brought up a patient half century from 120 balls.<\/p>\n
Ravindra got another reprieve on 13, as 12th man Kavem Hodge put down a regulation chance at slip.<\/p>\n
Upping the run rate, Ravindra raced to 50 from only 52 deliveries, as he and Latham took their partnership to three figures.<\/p>\n
The New Zealand captain brought up his 14th Test century right on the stroke of tea, followed soon by Ravindra who needed just 108 balls for his fourth Test ton.<\/p>\n
The Black Caps were cruising in the last session of the day before Latham was out for 145 off 250 balls very late in the day.<\/p>\n
Latham also passed 6000 Test runs with his captain’s knock on his home ground.<\/p>\n
Ravindra was eventually dismissed for his second highest Test score of 176 when he was bowled by Ojay Shields.<\/p>\n
Rather than declare with their healthy lead, New Zealand batted out the day with Will Young (21) and Michael Bracewell (6) at the crease.<\/p>\n
The Test is live and free on TVNZ Duke<\/a> and TNVZ+<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Black Caps are in firm control of the first cricket Test against the West Indies after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6429,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-168350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-black-caps","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}