Cricket: Mike Hesson on de Villiers' injury, Williamson's captaincy

New Zealand Cricket Team coach Mike Hesson during an indoor training session. Photo / File

Black Caps coach Mike Hesson has commented on South Africa's loss of AB de Villiers in an interview with Radio Sport.

De Villiers, captain of South Africa, has recently been ruled out of his team's upcoming test series against New Zealand with an elbow injury.

Of the news, Hesson said "That's a shame, obviously a high quality player and an important leader for South Africa, so that's gonna be a loss for them".

However he feels South Africa have players that can fill the void left by de Villiers, who is set to miss his first test match through injury.

"Looking at their squad they've certainly got a lot of depth."

Hesson's squad are without injury following the Black Caps' first test against Zimbabwe.

Hesson also commented on whether he would tinker with the lineup given the 1-0 series lead.

"Test cricket, for us, is something we won't be playing around with."

"We use other formats of the game to maybe introduce other players."

"Test cricket is it's purest form and one that we will make sure we pick our best side for in every test match so we'll certainly look to do that again in the next one."

The Zimbabwe test also marked Kane Williamson's first as captain.

"Kane just sort of went about his work really, he doesn't get flustered about too many things," said Hesson.

"He's just so calm and methodical with how he goes about things."

"We know during the next period of time we're gonna have the odd tough session and I'm sure Kane is more than capable of dealing with that."