On paper he’s in at No. 3, but he often pretty much ends up opening – and sticks around for ages, come juicy pitches or skilled bowling
Alagappan Muthu08-Jul-2019A friendly word of warning to all future New Zealand No. 3s.The one you have right now has played 71 ODI innings since the 2015 World Cup. In 44 of them, he has had to bat in the first five overs.So remember, in addition to the zillions of hours of training, you will have to go to sleep wearing your pads. You will have to be resigned to never being able to drink your morning coffee. It will be drip-fed through your helmet grilles. Oh, and maybe forget about bathroom breaks. You don’t want to be caught on camera with TP sticking out of your PJs.New Zealand right now are like flash paper. They just can’t help but go up in flames. And yet Kane Williamson does this thing and he does it so well – dude averages 50.74 since the last time the ICC threw a party like this – that it’s almost tempting to think he has made some dark deal with Martin Guptill, Henry Nicholls and Colin Munro for them to get out early so he can get in and just, you know, bat.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe mostly side-on set up. The rhythmic tap-tap-tap. That weird, no, adorable, no, weird, no, adorable, no weird little exhale into his gloves. “They get sweaty,” Williamson huffed as a seven-year old grilled him in 2017. “But sometimes I don’t even know I’m doing it.” That last bit also probably explains why he can’t stop playing the dab to third man. Or there’s the more ludicrous notion that his entire game, perfected over years and years, is built on meeting the ball as late and as close to his body as possible. Whatever the secret is, this scruffy 28-year-old is on his way to becoming a one-day genius.As much as he deserves praise for developing so tight a technique, it is only part of the story. A lot of batsmen can nail the drive and make it look pristine. Even more can cut the ball so hard it feels like a slap across the face. Everyone who makes it to international level has talent that falls on the side of extraordinary. But only a few can stomach having those shots find the fielders a little too often, or weather periods when it is way too risky to even be thinking about them. Williamson has chewed on 2107 dots since the last World Cup, second only to Rohit Sharma. He is still among the top-five run-getters in this time.