Latham rues small margins after Christchurch thumping

New Zealand captain Tom Latham thought the first test against England was closer than the scoreline suggested after his team lost by eight wickets in Christchurch on Sunday to slump to a third straight home loss.

The Blacks Caps, coming off a remarkable 3-0 series sweep in India, certainly more than held their own in the first two days at Hagley Oval before England rallied from 71-4 to post 499 in their first innings.

"It's never nice losing and certainly in the way that we have on the back of what we were able to do in India, where we were able to create a bit of momentum and a bit of confidence," Latham told reporters.

"But in saying that, we were able to build up a bit of confidence in that first innings to the point where we did have England (71) for four, so we certainly had our moments.

"For us, it's about trying to take the positives from this game as much as possible."

One of the areas New Zealand need to work on is catching, after England's Harry Brook was dropped a remarkable six times on his way to a match-turning score of 171.

"It was just one of those games where when one goes down, sometimes they all keep falling," said Latham.

"We like to stay nice and level, try not to over emphasize things. We know we need to be better, and we'll certainly hopefully do that in Wellington."

Latham said he was certain that the heavy loss was not down to any lack of effort from the players.

"Even though the result of the game does look quite big, there are small margins in the game of cricket and things didn't fall the right way," he said.

"The boys are putting the effort in and some days that's just cricket, the game we play. Unfortunately, things like that happen."

The second test starts in Wellington on Friday.