The New Zealand cricket team have decided to retire the No. 11 shirt in honour of their former captain and spinner Daniel Vettori.
New Zealand, who are currently in Sri Lanka for two Test matches and three T20Is, revealed their squad numbers ahead of the first Test and confirmed that Vettori’s number will be retired.
The Black Caps have decided to retire the shirt numbers of players who represent New Zealand in over 200 ODIs.
The Black Caps tweeted the development while announcing the shirt number of players for the Test series against Sri Lanka, starting on 14 August.
The full list of shirt numbers for the #SLvNZ Test squad.
Williamson 22
Astle 60
Blundell 66
Boult 18
De Grandhomme 77
Latham 48
Nicholls 86
Patel 24
Raval 1
Somerville 28
Santner 74
Southee 38
Taylor 3
Wagner 35
Watling 47#BACKTHEBLACKCAPS#WTC21 pic.twitter.com/QYtlkaUGSs— BLACKCAPS (@BLACKCAPS) August 5, 2019
Vettori played 291 ODIs for New Zealand, finishing with 297 wickets and 2253 runs before calling time on his career after the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2015.
He is also one of just three players ever to achieve the double of over 300 wickets and over 4000 runs in Tests – he has 362 wickets and 4531 runs.
The likes Stephen Fleming, Brendon McCullum, Chris Harris, Ross Taylor, Nathan Astle and Chris Cairns have also played a minimum of 200 ODIs for New Zealand too, but it isn’t yet clear whether the shirt numbers of all of them will be retired too.
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