Veteran New Zealand player Tom Latham, who has led New Zealand in 44 ODIs, is one of the frontrunners to lead the team full-time following Kane Williamson’s decision to step down. The 32-year-old Latham, who has filled in during Kane Williamson’s absence previously including at the 2023 Cricket World Cup, is open to taking charge.
“It would obviously be a real honour,” Latham said on Wednesday (July 17). “For me it’s always been about trying to put the team first as best as possible and I’m sure they’ll have those discussions around what they want from a team point of view and certainly if I get the opportunity to do that it would be really special.”
However, coach Gary Stead also revealed that although the management hadn’t reached the final stage of selection, Tom Latham was definitely on their shortlist for being named captain as well.
“We’re not at the stage of confirming it yet, so I don’t want to speculate whether Tom will be [named captain] or not. But he’s certainly one guy that will be in discussions around that role,” Stead said. “The important thing is whoever is in place, we want in place for two to three years or so, leading to that next [ODI] World Cup. That will be one of the important decision-making factors that we discuss.”
However, soon after a disappointing T20 World Cup campaign last month, Kane Williamson, Lockie Ferguson and Adam Milne have also declined their central contracts also. However, apart from the assignments coinciding with the SA20 in January next year, Williamson is likely to play the bulk of New Zealand’s international fixtures in all three formats.
“I think at the moment where cricket’s going in New Zealand is slightly different. It’s certainly not a black and white situation, and certainly changing with all these leagues popping up. Guess everyone is in a slightly different boat in what their future may look like depending on their age or stage they are in life,” Latham said.
“Don’t know what the right system is, there is a lot of flexibility within our contracts at the moment, but I think with the changing landscape of cricket I’m sure it will be something that New Zealand Cricket and the players’ association look at and try and come up with something,” he said. “We’ve seen over many years now, at times we haven’t had those senior guys. That gives me an opportunity as a senior player to step up and lead as well. But also other guys who haven’t necessarily had opportunities in the past to step up in different leadership roles. It’s never great when you miss guys of Kane’s calibre, but it gives opportunities to other guys to put their best foot forward.”
“We’ve got a lot of cricket in the summer [and] got an ICC pinnacle event [the Champions Trophy] which is exciting to look forward to. So whether it be with different personnel, whether it be with the guys we are used to having, whenever we can have them I’m sure that will be great, but think we’ve certainly got to be pretty fluid with what things look like in the future,” Tom Latham concluded.
