{"id":256257,"date":"2025-11-01T21:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T21:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/256257\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T21:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T21:50:09","slug":"black-caps-v-west-indies-kane-williamson-retires-from-twenty20-internationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/256257\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Caps v West Indies: Kane Williamson retires from Twenty20 Internationals"},"content":{"rendered":"

His leadership and tactics were key in New Zealand\u2019s run to the 2021 T20 World Cup final, where Williamson scored 85 in an eight-wicket loss to Australia. <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that I\u2019ve loved being a part of for a long period of time and I\u2019m so grateful for the memories and experiences,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the right time for myself and the team. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives the team clarity for the series moving forward and ahead of their next major focus which is the T20 World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much T20 talent there and the next period will be important to get cricket into these guys and get them ready for the World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cMitch [Santner] is a brilliant captain and leader – he\u2019s really come into his own with this team. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s now their time to push the Black Caps forward in this format and I\u2019ll be supporting from afar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KaneKane Williamson in action during the second T20 against India. Photo \/ Photosport=<\/p>\n

Williamson had been under pressure to earn his place<\/a> in the T20 squad, after Rachin Ravindra established himself as New Zealand\u2019s first choice No 3<\/a> in the former captain\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n

The likes of Finn Allen, Tim Seifert, Tim Robinson and Devon Conway had also provided the former captain with plenty of competition for spots in the top three. <\/p>\n

Last month, before the Black Caps\u2019 ODI series whitewash against England, Williamson had indicated his desire to represent New Zealand at the 2027 World Cup<\/a> in South Africa, as well as continue to play test cricket.<\/p>\n

However, he made no mention of next year\u2019s T20 World Cup, with today\u2019s announcement confirming that Williamson will not take part.<\/p>\n

Williamson is one of five Black Caps currently committed to NZ Cricket on a casual playing agreement<\/a>, effectively leaving him free to pursue opportunities in franchise cricket. <\/p>\n

While he has made it clear he intends to play on in test cricket, where he could become the first New Zealander to reach the mark of 10,000 test runs, that will come at the expense of T20s.<\/p>\n

And despite the potentially worrying trend of players being able to pick and choose when they\u2019re available for internationals, NZ Cricket say Williamson has earned that right. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve made it clear to Kane he has our full support as he reaches the back end of his illustrious career,\u201d chief executive Scott Weenink said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would, of course, love to see him play for as long as possible, but there\u2019s no doubt whenever he does decide to finally call time – he will go down as a legend of New Zealand cricket.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Kane committed to play the West Indies Test series in December, I\u2019d encourage all Kiwis to take the opportunity to get out and witness one of our greatest ever cricketers play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Powell<\/a> is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His leadership and tactics were key in New Zealand\u2019s run to the 2021 T20 World Cup final, where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,303,32605,740,5587,67835,122982,1182,151259,29887,12976,85,47567,28131,151260],"class_list":["post-256257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-black","tag-caps","tag-cricket","tag-from","tag-great","tag-indies","tag-internationals","tag-kane","tag-retired","tag-retires","tag-sports","tag-twenty20","tag-west","tag-williamson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}