INTERNATIONAL CRICKET

Southee and Latham are possible replacements for Williamson

New Zealand Cricket Team

New Zealand men’s team head coach, Gary Stead has named Tim Southee and Tom Latham as possible replacements for Kane Williamson.

Moreover, Williamson is going to take nine months to recover from his injury which makes it all the more difficult for his team.

Previously, Williamson had torn the anterior cruciate ligament of his right knee.

Therefore, it will not be very easy for the Blackcaps to pick out a possible replacement.

Moreover, with a long time to recover from his injury, Williamson’s participation in the marquee event is also uncertain.

Meanwhile, Stead has named two possible options who can replace Williamson as skipper in the 50-over World Cup.

That’s something that still needs to be worked out. Tim’s captain in the test team as well, but Tom’s had a lot of white-ball experience for us in the past. I thought he captained really well [in Pakistan], with a number of guys he didn’t know much about as well, and that’s always a challenge.

Looking at Latham’s record as a skipper in limited-overs cricket, then he has skippered 23 ODIs.

But, Latham did not feature as the next Test skipper after Williamson’s exit from the post last year.

Latham’s captaincy record is quite average in limited-overs cricket

Meanwhile, in the series against Pakistan recently, Latham led a second-string side of Kiwi players who managed to draw the T20I series 2-2 but lost the ODI series 1-4.

This shows that Latham may not be a wise choice as a skipper for New Zealand.

This leaves the Blackcaps to appoint Tim Southee as the skipper of the ODI side.

However, even if Williamson doesn’t recover in time for the mega event, Stead wants him to play mentor.

Apparently, the ODI World Cup is going to be played in India from October 5 to November 19.

All the venues, dates, and fixtures will most likely be announced after the end of the ongoing IPL season.

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