AB de Villiers leadership role was never discussed - Nkwe

Johannesburg, May 6: South Africa assistant coach Enoch Nkwe says the prospect of AB de Villiers regaining the Proteas captaincy has never been discussed.

De Villiers has made no secret of his desire to come out of international retirement, but last week emphatically denied reports Cricket South Africa had asked him to take a leadership role.

Quinton de Kock only replaced Faf du Plessis as white-ball captain earlier this year and a decision on the next Test skipper is expected to be announced in the near future.

Nkwe was surprised to read claims that De Villiers had been given the chance to take the captaincy and welcomed his swift denial of such claims.

He told Stats Perform: "I was shocked because from our position, we've never discussed anything like that.

"I was completely surprised because generally if something like that is going to happen myself and Mark [Boucher, head coach] would talk about it, including Graeme Smith [director of cricket], over a call, chat about ideas on who do we think would be captain going forward for however long.

"To see something like that was a complete surprise. I suppose maybe it could be someone out there just trying to make something out of nothing and I'm happy to see AB himself say that's not such.

"There's definitely been communication with regards to him returning because of the [Twenty20] World Cup and I know he would love to make an impact and win a World Cup for our country.

"That's clear, it's out there, he said it himself. But with regards to captaincy, that's pretty new to me and as far as I'm concerned nothing has been discussed behind the scenes."