Aotearoa's wicket-keeper/batsmen stocks were bursting at the seamers with most domestic teams enjoying the services of a young, talented keeper/batsman. Auckland have Glenn Phillips, Northern Districts has Tim Seifert (and Peter Bocock and BJ Watling), Central Districts has Dane Cleaver, Wellington's got Tom Blundell (and Luke Ronchi), Canterbury has Cameron Fletcher. Otago has Derek de Boorder, althought it seems like his Blackcaps window has come and passed.

Now we can add Tom Latham as a serious contender to wear the keeping gloves for the Blackcaps as he's been thrown up as an option by Gavin Larsen for the Chappell-Hadlee series. This is a complicated situation as Blundell has also been selected in the squad for the first two ODI games and instead of passing the torch to Blundell, showing him all sorts of faith/trust, Latham is their lurking as an option.

That would usually annoy me, especially as many other kiwi cricketers have had their confidence shot to pieces by the selectors and their chopping/changing nature. The flexibility that a wicket-keeping Latham offers, is enticing however and it's another string to the bow of Latham, especially as he opens in ODI cricket. 

If Latham wears the keeping gloves, it allows Neil Broom and Ross Taylor to operate in the middle order with Kane Williamson at No.3. It could also allows the Blackcaps to play with Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Matt Henry and Lockie Ferguson in the same team, although the option of rolling with the all-round ability of both Colin de Grandhomme and Jimmy Neesham seems like a better fit;

Guptill, Latham (wk), Williamson, Taylor, Broom, Neesham, Munro, Santner, Southee, Boult, Ferguson. (de Grandhomme, Blundell, Henry)

Funnily enough, the flavour of the month is Ish Sodhi and it was in February last year when Sodhi won Player of the Match honours in the deciding Chappell-Hadlee ODI. Having picked up the wickets of Steve Smith and Glenn Maxwell, Sodhi and Doug Bracewell flipped the game in favour of the kiwis and effectively won them the Chappell-Hadlee series. Since then, Sodhi has only played in three ODI games (all three in India).

As everyone pondered shock and horror that the Blackcaps got smoked over in Australia recently, I highlighted the disparity between the squad that won the Chappell-Hadlee series in Aotearoa and the squad that lost in Australia. I won't lie - I like this ODI squad to host Australia but keep in mind that only three players who won that 3rd ODI against Australia in Hamilton on Ferbruary 8 are in this squad; Martin Guptill, Kane Williamson and Matt Henry.

There's no need to try drum up hype and excitement for this series as it's the damn Chappell-Hadlee series. As we saw in the Australian-leg of the battle, Australia now have a stronger ODI team than that brought to Aotearoa last year and we are going to learn a whole lot about the international credentials of a couple Blackcaps after they thoroughly enjoyed life as bullies against Bangladesh.