Cricket News: Kane Williamson follows Virat Kohli and Joe Root in exit mode
And the last skipper of modern-day cricket’s ‘Fab Four’ has fallen. Kane Williamson, the last skipper standing, has handed the reins of New Zealand’s Test captaincy to Tim Southee.
Kane Williamson will continue to lead New Zealand in the white-ball format with focus on the ODI World Cup in 2023 and T20 World Cup in 2024And with that, Test cricket is left without a single ‘Fab Four’ captain.
The exit of Steve Smith is well-documented at this point and needs no revisiting, as the Newlands scandal still dominates headlines.
But while he occasionally captains the team, he has made clear he doesn’t intend to step back in the role full-time.
Yet it is intriguing to note that Virat Kohli, Joe Root and now Kane Williamson have also left their captaincy posts – whether by choice or otherwise.
Root’s relinquishing of the captaincy is the freshest of these besides the Williamson one, as it was earlier in 2022 that Ben Stokes took the reins as England’s Test captain.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Kane Williamson's Test captaincy reign delivered some incredible moments 🇳🇿<br><br>✍️: <a href="https://t.co/obWfDzvwZE">https://t.co/obWfDzvwZE</a> <a href="https://t.co/HSARNiAj6D">pic.twitter.com/HSARNiAj6D</a></p>— ICC (@ICC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ICC/status/1603306522011996160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 15, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In that case, it was easy to understand why Root took the decision he did – even if many will rightfully believe he was nudged rather than voluntarily giving up the role.
Test match results had deteriorated under Root, so after 2021, they were out of contention for a spot in the 2023 World Test Championship (WTC) final.
Even their fantastic revival under Stokes and Brendon McCullum – also known as the era of Bazball – has done little to aid their final chances in this cycle.
It is also worth noting that Root, free from the shackles of captaincy, looks a different player – even though his batting form never waned even as his captaincy form fell off a cliff.
For Kohli, the situation was a lot more complex. He wanted only to quit the T20I captaincy and was eventually nudged out of the ODI leadership role.
Then India’s series loss to South Africa and, in all likelihood, a growing feeling that Kohli was isolated in the team without former head coach Ravi Shastri made him leaving the Test captaincy inevitable.
So in Kohli’s case, the pressure of results and political gamesmanship led to his departure from all roles of power.
In Williamson’s case, the move came as a surprise – not least because most people were calling for him to leave behind his ODI and T20I captaincy to focus more on Tests.
As things stand, Williamson remains the white-ball leader and will continue to play Tests for New Zealand too. However, he won’t be their captain any longer.
The lack of a long-term leadership candidate in white-ball cricket led to him staying on for the interim, or at least until the 2023 ICC World Cup.
Even his successor in red-ball captaincy, Tim Southee, is hardly getting any younger. But he has experience leading the side and is a sure starter across formats.
It is still somewhat surreal to see no one from the Fab Four lead their respective countries anymore. At one point, fan debates would rage over who was the best batsman and the best leader.
Now the leadership debates are gone, and the batting debate remains the only one for fans to go on about.