As speculation continues to swirl around the captaincy of Ross Taylor, the former Black Caps skipper Daniel Vettori is almost certain to miss New Zealand's cricket tour of South Africa later this month.
A troubling Achilles injury has Vettori a major doubt, though he hasn't yet been officially ruled out of the tour by New Zealand Cricket - but his Australian Twenty20 franchise, the Brisbane Heat, says it's been advised the all-rounder won't be able to play for at least six weeks.
The Australian Twenty20 Big Bash tournament begins on Friday, while New Zealand's tour of South Africa runs from December the 18th until January the 25th.
New Zealand's squad for the two test, three one day, three Twenty20 match tour has been delayed until Friday as speculation swirls around Taylor's captaincy, which has reportedly been questioned by a group of players.
Fairfax newspapers has reported that Brendon McCullum is expected to be given the captaincy of the limited overs side, while Taylor retains the test captaincy.
TVNZ, however, reported on Wednesday that Taylor may not even go to South Africa and NZC Chief Executive David White, whose delayed return from an ICC meeting in Dubai was one of the reasons why the team announcement was pushed back to Friday, refused to answer questions about the captaincy.
Taylor took to the social networking site Twitter to try to dampen down speculation on Wednesday, writing that he's heard from the CEO once, he hasn't made any decisions and has at no time given NZC any ultimatums about coach Mike Hesson or South Africa.
The rehabilitating Black Caps batsman Jesse Ryder has tweeted his anger at watching Taylor getting "dumped on" and has called for NZC to "show him some (expletive) support".
