Hey ,long time lurker first time poster as im watching the newzealand vs England test i cant help but wonder if new Zealand has a succession plan cause if you think about it most of their golden generation ( taylor watling de grandhomme wagner will be the first wave to retire then latham williamson nicholls satner boult and southee will retire round about the same time and as weve seen with many teams losing lots of greats and solid international players round about the same time can have seriously adverse effects on a team
There’s a fair bit of variance amongst the ages of the guys you list there, so I don’t think it’s quite right to say that everyone will be retiring around the same time:
Taylor 35
Watling 34
CdG 33
Wagner 33
Boult 30
Southee 30
Williamson 29
Nicholls 28
Latham 27
Santner 27
You are correct though that there are 2 significant waves of retirements coming:
1) Watling, CdG and Wagner (almost certainly sometime in the next 2 years); and
2) Boult, Southee and Williamson (probably in about 5 years time).
The succession planning for the first wave looks pretty solid. NZ has - in Ferguson, Blundell, Neesham and Young - players who’ve had a lot of success in NZA and limited overs internationals. There are also several other promising youngsters like Rachin Ravindra and Nathan Smith who in a couple of years’ time could be well placed to challenge for the allrounders spot.
The succession for the 2nd wave looks a lot more uncertain, unsurprisingly given it represents 3 of NZ’s greatest ever test cricketers. Matt Henry will I think be able to do a decent job replacing Southee with the new ball for a couple of years, but there are no obvious replacements for Boult and certainly no one likely to be capable of Williamson’s greatness. Fortunately, 5 years is a long time for youngsters to emerge and develop. As mentioned, Rachin Ravindra is one player who may well be in position to take over Williamson’s role in the side. Another is Finn Allen a 20 year old who scored a hundred in a warm-up match against England last week. Kyle Jamieson is a towering medium pacer who’s accumulating a very impressive domestic record. There’s also a pacey 20 year old lad from Wellington called Ben Sears who’s had a very impressive start to his FC career. It's still a long way out though, so who knows.