NOTES FROM THE OVAL III
Kane goes into Big Breezy mode, Santner turns it, and challenging Macca's orthodoxy
There is danger of pushing the “rinse, repeat” button when it comes to Kane Williamson, but to do so would be a travesty.
We should inoculate ourselves against taking him for granted because what he’s doing is not normal.
Williamson followed his first innings grind of 118 with a breezy 109 against an overmatched South Africa attack (which ACC commentator Jeremy Wells described more accurately as a “defence”).
There was a lightness to Williamson’s work - cue up his two boundaries between the keeper and a wide slip as evidence of someone in total control of his domain - and the only similarity with Sunday was that he attempted another ugly hoick over the leg side in the middle of his innings. Again he was shelled by the hapless Edward Moore.
While there was a low(er) degree of difficulty for century #31 compared to others in the past, it was striking how much easier he made batting look than his batting partner Devon Conway.
For those of us counting, that’s six test centuries in his last 10 knocks, 835 runs at 92.8, and yesterday he joined Glenn Turner, Geoff Howarth, Andrew Jones and Peter Fulton as the only New Zealanders to score centuries in each innings of a test.
So far, only Turner’s, against Australia at Lancaster Park in 1974, have come in a winning effort, though surely Williamson will join him. Jones’ were scored in a bore draw against Sri Lanka at Hamilton. Howarth’s helped save a test and a 1-1 series result against England at Eden Park and Fulton scored his (the only time he passed 100 in tests) against the same opposition at the same park for the same result, though that tells only a fraction of the story of that incredible test.
Wrote Stephen to The Bounce on Sunday, after the first innings: “I’m struggling to best describe Williamson’s stat line now [other] than to say he is moving himself from NZ great to world great. He should finish in the top five century makers of all time and could finish in the top three.”
As I replied at the time, it would be staggering if Williamson caught Ricky Ponting (41) in third. Even scoring at his career rate, which seems unlikely as you get deeper into your thirties, that would require him to play 32 more tests and that just doesn’t seem plausible. Five more would get himself the top five, and that seems doable, though that presupposes that Steve Smith (32), Joe Root (30) and Virat Kohli (29) won’t rocket past that number on the back of far more test cricket.
Still, the very fact we’re talking about a New Zealander hitting those heights is amazing.
In some of the seediest pits of social media, Williamson was accused of “stats-padding”, which would perturb those who know him as the epitome of a team-first batter (to the point where he has nine scores in the 90s in ODI cricket, dismissed either on the slog or refusing the chase the three figures as the winning score approached).
It was neither his decision to reject the follow on, nor to schedule the SAT20 at the same time as a test series.
It wasn’t until he hit the nineties yesterday that he betrayed any hint of knocking it around with a milestone in mind. I’m pretty sure that him filling the twin-centuries hole in his CV meant a lot more to those watching at home (that is to say, people like me) than it did to him.
It’s a nice little stats boost, for sure, but stats-padding… nope, wrong person.
Anyhow, when it comes to watching Williamson bat at the moment, it pays to not overthink it - just enjoy it because we’re much closer to the end than the start.
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On the back of an email last night that expressed mild and entirely reasonable disappointment that I hadn’t paid enough attention to the fact this is a grotesquely understrength South Africa, please take it as read that this is a Proteas team in name only. The reasons I don’t mention it in every newsletter now are, a) because it felt like that was all I was talking about in the lead-up to the series and, b) it is not the XI men of New Zealand’s problem. To steal a line from our national sport, you can only play what’s in front of you…