5 minute read

Kane Williamson has been injured. In his first Test back, he made 93. This is how he does it. This is how he’s always done it. This is how he has to do it.

Sometimes it’s a ‘big three’, sometimes it’s a ‘fab four’, other times it’s a head-to-head comparison that only involves half of them, but Kane Williamson, Virat Kohli, Joe Root and Steve Smith have long rubbed up against each other in the same editorial space.

This makes sense. They all made their Test debuts within a couple of years of each other, they’ve all played over 100 Tests and they’ve all at one time or another averaged over 50 in Test cricket. (Kohli is the only one who currently doesn’t.)

At the same time, we always think that one of these four men just fundamentally plays a different game to the other three. Specifically, we think how the hell has Kane Williamson got to 100 Tests when he plays for New Zealand?

Readiness

There are people in this world who walk around just absolutely primed for verbal combat. Some inadvertent slight or misunderstanding occurs – a food order not quite right or some minor confusion at a junction – and they are ON IT.

‘How did you get there?’ you wonder. How did you soar to maximal rage so quickly without any obvious groundwork to build from? Do you just pass your whole life simmering away combustibly, awaiting a spark?

Kane Williamson is also inexplicably ready – only Kane is ready to bat in a Test match.

It doesn’t matter where, or when, or what he’s been doing in the preceding weeks and months. He’s just ready.

The start

Have you ever been to Ahmedabad? Ahmedabad is different. We had already been in India for about four months when we emerged from the railway station there and even then it felt like a culture shock.

We’d come from Ellora, way further south, and suddenly there were camels on the road. Maybe we’re misremembering, but our recollection is that these camels were also disconcertingly massive – bigger than the one in the image below.

If you are from a place with camels and this doesn’t seem all that weird to you, let us tell you that when you first find yourself sat in an autorickshaw, in a traffic jam, alongside a camel, you become acutely aware that you are in a very different place. (To be clear, the camel is alongside the tuk-tuk in this description, not alongside you on the back seat – it’s not cadging a lift or anything.)

The point here is that India’s a bit of a sensory overload for a newcomer and Ahmedabad can feel pretty overwhelming even when you’ve been there a while. (It’s probably a good job we didn’t arrive there a week later.)

It was in Ahmedabad where Kane Williamson made his Test debut in November 2010. If you’re from Tauranga, Ahmedabad will give you a lot to think about and a first Test innings presumably brings quite a significant mental load too.

New Zealand were 137-4 when he walked out, quite some way adrift of India’s 487. Williamson batted for six and a half hours and scored 131.

The starts

Start as you mean to go on, we suppose. But starting well is doubly important when you play for New Zealand for whom Test series are routinely shorn of a middle, let alone an end.

In 2014, India toured Australia and in the first Test, in Adelaide, Steve Smith and Virat Kohli made hundreds. Because of who they play for, and who they were playing against, both men were able to exploit that form – the two of them also made hundreds in the fourth Test. In all, Smith made 769 runs in that series at an average of 128.16, while Kohli made 692 at an average of 86.50.

Williamson has never made more than 428 runs in a series, because the longest one he has ever played only comprised three matches.

He can achieve a lot in just two Tests though. When South Africa toured earlier this year, he made three hundreds in four innings. Twice – against Bangladesh in 2019 and against Pakistan in 2022 – his first innings of a series has been 200 not out.

Playing the West Indies in 2020, Williamson only got to bat the once and so he made 251. A week or two later, he encountered Pakistan. He made 129 in the first Test and 238 in the second.

There are pros and cons to this, of course. It’s not just batters who benefit from getting into a groove, after all. The hit and run nature of Williamson’s Test career also means that opposition bowlers don’t get quite so long to hone their plans, so he sidesteps that a little. He also gets to keep his eye in by playing almost every New Zealand match in all three formats, whereas Australia, England and India players tend to charge towards burnout until ‘workload management’ intervenes or one format or another quietly drifts away from them.

What’s far more important is the earth-shudderingly obvious fact that different grounds and opponents have become but a flickering backdrop to the constant that is Williamson’s Test run-scoring.

Here’s a particularly good one. In a 12-month period from February last year, he hit seven hundreds in seven Test matches, at six different grounds, against four different teams.

Really, it’s just different. Williamson’s 103-Test career accumulated in twos and threes is markedly distinct from Root’s 150-Test career that has mostly arrived in threes, fours and fives. We can’t really say whether that makes his achievements better or worse; more or less significant. There will be people out there who demand answers, but there seems little point to us working to develop a method for apple-orange comparison.

He is good at what he does. He is fit for purpose.

Pack a bag, warm the jet engines and set the Test schedule to ‘shuffle’ – Kane Williamson will be ready.

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We’re not looking to prick Anglo/Kiwi pride here or anything, but it’s striking to us that thus far Border-Gavaskar-related pint-buying has been considerably outpacing Crowe-Thorpe-related pint-buying.

That’s fine. In the field of pint-drinking, we’re as adaptable and unflappable as Kane Williamson. We’re just a bit surprised because most of our audience is from the UK. We assume it’s largely because many British would-be buyers are long-term Patreon backers of this website and are therefore already moistening us monthly.

Thanks to all of you.