Black Cap Kane Williamson’s rise to greatness built on coaches’ sore shoulders

Wednesday, 6 March 2024

The Black Caps’ first wicket will fall and Kane Williamson will head out to the middle at some stage during the second test against Australia in Christchurch, starting on Friday.

Holding his Gray-Nicolls bat, he will loosen himself up, stretching his back and his shoulders, swinging the tool of his trade with both arms, then playing a few air shots to finish.

After taking his guard, he will then face his 16,863rd ball in test cricket, which will also be the first, but hopefully not the last, to come his way during his 100th test.

Only 46 of the 16,862 deliveries the 33-year-old has faced so far have got past his defences; 22 have hit his stumps, while 24 have trapped him leg before wicket. Another 111 have resulted in him being caught, stumped, or run out.

Some 8675 runs have flowed from his bat, helping him make 32 test centuries – a mark bettered by just 10 others in the game’s 147-year history.

But while those are the numbers that will be readily found decades from now, there are tens of thousands of other balls that don’t show up in Williamson’s official statistics.

The ones that have been bowled to him in the nets. The ones that have been fired out of bowling machines. And the ones that have been thrown by a series of coaches over the years, quenching an insatiable thirst for self-improvement.

As David Johnston, a Bay of Plenty mentor who first saw Williamson in action as a 10-year-old, put it: “He has got an unbelievably big work ethic. He's always wanting to practise and works and works and works, so he's worn out a few shoulders in his time.”

Black Caps batting coach Luke Ronchi is the current thrower-in-chief. He laughs when asked how many balls he has sent in Williamson’s direction: “I have no idea. I threw balls at him when I was still playing with him. I still throw balls at him now.”

Ben Williams worked with Williamson when he was a teen and describes himself as 'quite a nice throwdown donkey,” complementing what the youngster’s father, Brett, had already been doing in that regard. “I was throwing a lot of rockets to him at that age and trying to challenge him”.

Williams remembers one age-group tournament where he was going to give Williamson “a few throws as a warm-up, and he said, ‘Could you please go down on your knees and throw from a lower height? Because that's where the boys are going to be releasing from when I go in to bat soon’.

“I thought, ‘Bloody hell!’ I've never had a kid say anything like that since.”

Williamson’s journey to 100 test caps began with a Bay of Plenty debut as 15-year-old in 2005, where Hamilton’s Daniel Vettori had him caught for a two-ball duck. A first-class debut for Northern Districts followed in 2007, where Auckland’s Andre Adams trapped him LBW twice, first for two, then for a duck. Then came his test debut in 2010 in India, where he made 131 in his first innings, having figured out how to make a good first impression.

It was in 2014 that Williamson really announced himself, scoring 929 runs including four centuries at an average of 61.93. Martin Crowe – who he has dislodged as New Zealand’s greatest batsman – wrote a column that August dubbing him, Australia’s Steve Smith, England’s Joe Root and India’s Virat Kohli as the “Fab Four”. Since it was published on Cricinfo, no-one who has played over 20 test innings has averaged more than Williamson’s 64.26.

He kicked on in 2015, scoring 1172 runs including five centuries at an average of 90.15. Every year since then, he has averaged more than 50. Since December 2020, he has scored centuries 11 of the 12 times he passed 50, with his unbeaten 52 to see the Black Caps home in the World Test Championship final against India in June 2021 the lone exception.

He may have disappointed with a duck and a nine in the first test against Australia, but with 10 more tests on the cards for the Black Caps in 2024 – the next starting Friday at Hagley Oval – and 412 runs, including three centuries, to his name already, a historic year beckons.

Johnston is a groundsman at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui these days, so still sees Williamson often, and has something he likes to remind people about, whenever they’re weighing up his place amongst the all-time batting greats.

“Three is not an easy place to bat, because you're facing the new ball. Kohli and Root and Babar Azam and Steve Smith all bat four.

“Three is probably the hardest place – you could be in the second ball the game or you could wait a while. When you look back, he'll be one of the greatest players the world's ever seen.”

What has made Williamson’s form over the past three years especially impressive is that there was a long stretch from early 2021 to mid 2022 where he was battling an overuse injury in his left elbow.

“It was a pretty horrible time for him,” Johnston says. “The elbow was really annoying because he just loves to have a bat in his hand.”

“Frustrating” is how Ronchi puts it, 'because it was something that he was trying to push through and work with. It hindered the amount of time he could train and he was almost saving himself for games, then wasn't happy with his prep.”

Hitting balls has long been part of Williamson’s routine, so by extension, throwing them to him has become part of Ronchi’s. That means he sometimes gets a sneak preview of what’s to come, pointing to the second test win over the Proteas last month, where Williamson made an unbeaten 133 in a chase of 267, as a recent example.

“The warm-up of the fourth day of the South Africa test at Hamilton, when he knew he was going to be facing the first ball of the day, you could just tell that Kane was in his batting zone.

“He gets little bits of frustration and enjoyment from different things and you can see his mindset, and you know he's going to go make runs that day. When you see that, it's always a cool thing to know in advance.”

Everyone who has ever thrown balls at Williamson says it has been nothing but a pleasure, even if their shoulders might want to argue otherwise.

Craig McMillan did it for five years as one of Ronchi’s predecessors and believes Williamson “will be talked about in the top half a dozen batters of all time” once he retires. “To be able to work with him up close, and yes, help him at times with his game, was something I feel very lucky to have been a part of.”

He rattles off the names of four greats he came up against in his test career – “Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis, Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar” and says Williamson’s “name is in that top echelon with those players, which for a New Zealander, is quite remarkable”.

McMillan also urges Black Caps fans to treasure him while there is still a chance to. “At times we're in our own little bubble at the bottom of the world. We don't quite appreciate greatness when it's upon us, so I think it's something we have to really enjoy and make the most of, because we don't know how long he's going to be around.”

New Zealand supporters will be hoping Williamson has many more balls to face in the years to come – perhaps as many as 4500, if he carries on at least through the 2026-27 summer, where the Black Caps are set to play a four-test series in Australia between a pair of two-test series at home against India and Sri Lanka.

Sooner rather than later, however, there will come a day when he won’t be there, but the balls will keep on coming. And no matter who’s facing them, Kiwi supporters won’t feel as assured as they did when Williamson was there to deal with them.

Kane Williamson's test career – by the numbers

8675 test runs

16862 balls faced

Averages 55.25

32 centuries

Highest score of 251