Notes from the Basin #2*

Sir Edmund Hillary, Richard McCaw… Kane Williamson? ($)

Photosport/ Chris Symes

* Full disclosure: actually filed from 657km north of the Basin.

NZ 580-4 dec

Sri Lanka 26-2

There have been a lot of words written about Kane Williamson over the past couple of years, each essentially covering one of three topics:

• He’s in form;

• He’s out of form;

• The degree to which he’s New Zealand’s greatest batter.

All feel moot after he today added 215 against Sri Lanka to his match-winning scores of 121 not out against the same opposition and 132 following on against England in the previous two tests.

If you were being particularly harsh you could say that his 26th and 27th test centuries were examples of being able to score runs while not necessarily in prime form, but this, the 28th, was different; this was very much in form.

Williamson has outplayed all the usual topics and inquiries, so instead I’ll pose this: has he reached a type of batting Platonic Ideal?