FILE PHOTO: Cricket - ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 - England v New Zealand - Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, India - October 5, 2023 New Zealand's Mitch Santner celebrates after taking the wicket of England's Jonny Bairstow caught by Daryl Mitchell REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo
(Reuters) - Left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner was named as the successor to Kane Williamson as New Zealand captain in one-day internationals and Twenty20 cricket on Wednesday.
The 32-year-old, who has played 243 internationals and captained his country in 28 short format matches on a temporary basis, will take charge of the team for the first time in a T20 series against Sri Lanka starting in late December.
"It's obviously a huge honour and a privilege to be asked," said Santner, who was named Player of the Match as New Zealand thrashed England in the third test on Tuesday.
"When you're a young kid the dream was always to play for New Zealand but to have the opportunity to officially lead my country in two formats is special."
Williamson stepped down from the white ball captaincy after the T20 World Cup in the United States and Caribbean earlier this year, having handed the test captaincy over to Tim Southee in 2022.
Southee in turn passed it on to Tom Latham in October and coach Gary Stead said the appointment of Santner would allow the opening batsman to concentrate on that job.
"Tom's doing a great job as full-time test captain since taking over in October and we're keen to allow him to focus on that job which requires a considerable amount of time and energy," he said.
Santner said it was an exciting time to take over the short format teams with many of the generation that took New Zealand to the finals of the 2015 and 2019 ODI World Cups having retired or approaching retirement.
"There's obviously a little bit of a changing of the guard with some of our experienced players at the back end of their careers," he said.
"I think that's exciting for the remainder of the group and the young players to now take on the challenge and drive this team forward to further success."
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Toby Davis)
