Southee, Latham in consideration for captaining New Zealand squad for ODI World Cup
May 09, 2023
Auckland [New Zealand], May 9 : Tim Southee and Tom Latham could be in consideration for the replacement of Kane Williamson in New Zealand's ODI World Cup captaincy as reported by ESPNcricinfo.
Williamson ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament while fielding for Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League (IPL), scans revealed April 4.
However, the New Zealand regular skipper has begun his rehabilitation after his surgery.
Notably, Latham was leading the Blackcap as a stand-in captain in the absence of Williamson. He was also captaining the side in the tour of Pakistan where they tied the T20I series by 2-2 and claimed the ODI series by 4-1.
"That's something that still needs to be worked out, Tim is captaining the Test team as well. Tom has had plenty of white-ball experience for us in the past. Though he captained really well [in Pakistan] with a number of guys he didn't know much about and that's always a challenge," New Zealand coach Gary Stead said as per quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
Stead also praised Daryl Mitchell and said that he also stood up for the team in every match.
"Every opportunity Daryl gets in a number of different positions he keeps putting his hand up. He's shown his value to the team overall," Stead told reporters in Auckland.
In Pakistan, Daryl had an outstanding ODI series with two centuries while Will Young also averaged 48, although Stead said no decisions had been made about who would fill the position moving forward.
"[Will's] had a really good start to his international career, especially the white-ball game, and he's had some of the Associate teams where he's scored big runs but it was really pleasing to see how he went against what is a real quality attack when you think of Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf, Shadab Khan."
"We've got three months before we need to land this so have time on our side, We still haven't got a World Cup draw yet, we don't know where we are playing so it's pretty hard to nail everything down until we get those things in place," he concluded.
