(ESPN) Control your game, you control the game. That is Kane Williamson in a nutshell. Every defining trait of his batting – the obsession with playing late, the aversion to hitting in the air, the freakish ability to never ever follow a swinging ball – is an effort to put his team in the best possible position to win a Test match and he did just that, while also scoring the third double-century of his career.
West Indies couldn’t hold a consistent line and length at the start of play on day one, but since the first break in play at Hamilton, they’ve been able to settle into good rhythm. They tested Williamson with a fuller length in line with the stumps. But most of all, they were getting better at hitting the same spot on the pitch over and over again. That is key on a green pitch.
Williamson recognised the danger and adapted accordingly. He shelved the expansive shots. He steeled himself for periods when he wouldn’t score any runs. He was so precise especially with the deliveries that he was comfortable attacking. If they were full and wide and he could reach the pitch of the ball, he went for the drive. Except even then, he wouldn’t let the bat follow through away from his body. That was how he went past 200. If it was short and wide, he stood tall and smashed ‘em square on the off side. That is how he went past 100.
As much as Williamson’s decision-making enabled him to score, his unyielding technique protected him from being dismissed.
Kemar Roach was able to conjure several dangerous deliveries, routinely going wide of the crease in search of the outside edge. Thanks to his remarkable ability to straighten the ball no matter how steep the angle is into the right-hander, he is a constant wicket-taking threat.
Williamson faced several jaffas like those and although he was beaten more than once, he never looked like nicking off. It isn’t the first time the New Zealand captain has exhibited such slipperiness.
For some reason, he seems immune to the very human instinct to follow the ball, especially when it threatens to move late. If you’re even a half-decent batsman, you want to feel bat on ball. If you’re a great one, you just know better.
These really aren’t easy conditions to bat in. The amount of grass on the pitch preserves the ball so that even at 80 overs, it keeps swinging and seaming. And yet Williamson, all through the second session, was going at monster pace. He bolted from 136 off 294 at the end of the 103rd over to 236 off 400 at tea. That’s 100 runs off 106 balls and in light of such mastery, even fate couldn’t help but fall for him.
On 221, after Williamson had dismissed Roach to the long-on and midwicket boundaries with devastating authority, he was caught behind to an outswinger. As he was leaving the field, after more than 550 minutes at the crease, the cricket gods decided they wanted more.
They wanted to see more shots like that audacious flick down the ground from only moments ago. The wristwork, the balance, the way he stood tall and waited for the ball to get under his eyes and the timing on the shot were all quite mesmerising. So they made the one ball that was good enough to take Williamson’s edge a no-ball.
The other New Zealanders hadn’t earned the same kind of luck. Shannon Gabriel secured the outside edge of Ross Taylor’s bat in the second over of the day. Roach had Henry Nicholls flashing outside his off stump. Those two wickets in the first hour of play threatened the notion that West Indies would be able to limit the damage they let happen on the first day. Instead, they ended up feeling like the villains in a Scooby Doo cartoon. “I would’ve gotten away with it if not for that meddling Kane.”
Scores:
NEW ZEALAND 477 for six (Kane Williamson 236 not out, Tom Latham 86, Ross Taylor 38, Kyle Jamieson 35 not out; Shannon Gabriel 3-89, Kemar Roach 3-114) vs WEST INDIES.
