Kane Williamson is the right man to lead New Zealand, affirms Gary Stead

Plenty of reports in the recent past have all pointed their fingers that Gary Stead was unhappy with the Kiwi skipper Kane Williamson over his captaincy. However, the New Zealand World-Cup final coach quashed all the reports as he affirmed Kane Williamson is still the right man to lead New Zealand cricket team across all the formats. 

In 32 Tests, the Tauranga-born cricketer has led them to 18 victories, with only six losses. His record in the limited-overs too has been refreshingly positive, with 26 wins in 50 ODIs and 15 T20I wins in 24 games that he has captained. 

“There’s no truth to it (Williamson being sacked) ... that was certainly news to me… certainly had no conversations around that sort of thing,” Stead was quoted as saying by ‘Newshub’ as he opened up on the issue for the first time.

“At this stage, Kane’s our man. He’s the guy we’ve backed, he’s been a great leader for this team and I’m sure he will be in the future as well. I think it’s very good. I think it’s strong,” he added. 

However, one of Gary Stead’s lowest points in his coaching career was when New Zealand failed narrowly to England on the account of the boundary-count rule in the 2019 World Cup Final. While a host of stars have expressed their displeasure over the rule, Stead admitted that there is no bitterness from the loss. The New Zealand coach, however, admitted that he was 'a wee bit hurt'. Both sides during their first attempt managed to score the same number of runs, which was then followed by a super-over that England won on the basis of the boundary-countback rule.

“I think there’s a wee bit of hurt from time to time and I guess any Kiwi fan is probably very much in that same boat. There’s no bitterness at all, we understood the rules going into the match,” Stead continued.