New Zealand cricket head coach Gary Stead steps down from limited-overs formats

Add as a preferred source on Google

Wellington, April 8 (AP): Gary Stead confirmed on Tuesday (April 8) he will no longer coach New Zealand in the Twenty20 and one-day international formats and is considering his future in Test cricket.

Stead said he expects to take a month to reach a final decision. The 53-year-old Stead has coached New Zealand in all formats since taking over from Mike Hesson in 2018. New Zealand Cricket said it would advertise from next week and is yet to decide whether it will appoint different coaches to different formats.

Stead guided New Zealand to the finals of the 2019 ICC World Cup, the 2022 T20 World Cup and this year's Champions Trophy. He also led New Zealand to victory in the inaugural World Test Championship.

“Gary's results have been very impressive over a long period and we're very comfortable giving him some time to collect his thoughts,” NZC high performance officer Bryan Stronach said in a statement.

“At the moment we haven't any strong preference for either a split-coaching role or a sole appointment who covers all three formats and we're unlikely to be clearer on that until we see who's putting their name forward.”

New Zealand has just completed a 4-1 win over Pakistan in a home T20 series and a 3-0 win in the one-day international series. Those results were achieved with an under-strength side with many leading players unavailable because of the Indian Premier League.

“I'm looking forward to getting away from touring life for a while and having a think about my future,” Stead said. “My focus has been on finishing the season strongly with a lesser experienced team.

“The past six to seven months has been particularly busy with relatively non-stop cricket action since September. I now want to evaluate my options but still feel I have coaching left in me, albeit not as head coach across all formats.”

(AP) PDS PDS