Williamson's captaincy not under any threat, says NZC

Wellington, May 20 (IANS) New Zealand Cricket (NZC) has rubbished the claims that Kane Williamson's captaincy in Test format is under threat and that Tom Latham could be considered to lead the side in the longest format of the game.

Following New Zealand's 0-3 whitewash in the Australia Test series, questions were put up over Williamson's captaincy, with some saying that he was carrying too onerous a workload across all three formats.

James McOnie, The Crowd Goes Wild broadcaster, had recently claimed that head coach Gary Stead prefers Latham as Test captain and is planning a change.

"Coup alert! Kane Williamson's test captaincy is under threat," McOnie tweeted."Apparently coach Gary Stead favours fellow Cantabrian Tom Latham as skipper. It'd be easier on the ego to take the T20 job from Kane, to ease his workload, but that's not the preferred plan."

However, the cricket board has rejected the suggestions, according to a report in NZ Herald. "There's absolutely no truth to any suggestion Kane's captaincy is under threat," a team spokesman told Newshub.

Following Australia debacle, Williamson and Co. however went back to the winning ways and after suffering a 5-0 whitewash in the T20Is against India, they thrashed Virat Kohli's men in both the three-match ODI and two-match Test series.