“An innings of sheer class from the king.”
That was Brendon McCullum speaking shortly after watching the BLACKCAPS’ world class number three drive it home with BJ Watling for an ANZ Test Series sweep against Sri Lanka.
With an unbeaten second innings 108 — a survivor after a tumultous third day, Kane Williamson was an easy pick for man of the match.
That’s an achievement in any winning Test, but there are likely few cricket followers left in the world who don’t know by now that the 25-year-old gun gets pretty modest when you start singling him out and showering him with such individual accolades.
So now we’re going to make him feel modest all over again, because there are more than a few special mentions to be directed his way.
The winning of the Test has triggered Kane Williamson’s elevation to the top of the world.
Immediately after BJ Watling hit the winning run, the ICC released its Test batting rankings for 21 December 2015. For the first time, Kane Williamson is officially the leading Test batsman on the planet.
It’s the first time a New Zealander has held that honour since the rankings were created, although Glenn Turner had a standout year in 1974, and restrospective calculations put him top in the world for that year.
With a textbook pull shot and only the barest flicker of relief, Williamson had posted his 13th Test century this morning at Seddon Park — one of his home grounds for Northern Districts where he had shone as a teenager, their player of the year twice before he’d even turned 20.
Even then, he was tipped for future stardom. Talk of him being a future BLACKCAP goes back to when he was about eight, playing alongside and captaining 11-year-olds in Tauranga.
Today Williamson got his Test average for the calendar year up to 90.15, and he is now just a shade away from 50 in his overall Test career average (49.93). Only eight players in the world have ever scored 1000 or more Test runs in a calendar year and done it at an average above 90.
That boundary at Seddon not only raised a match-winning hundred, off 152 balls, it also took Williamson past Brendon McCullum’s record for the most Test runs by any BLACKCAP — past or present — in a calendar year.
McCullum’s record, freshly posted after a spectacular 2014, had stood at 1164. Now Williamson holds the baton at 1172, having nailed his last Test appearance of 2015.
His latest century also forms the BLACKCAPS record for the most Test centuries in a year: five of the best. He's also got the nod for the most consecutive Series with a century to show for it.
And, it helped take to 13 the number of successive home Tests for the BLACKCAPS without defeat, equalling our record in a special era of cricket for New Zealand.
Thirteen a lucky number? Believe it. Williamson’s 13th Test century sees him go level with teammate Ross Taylor as the current BLACKCAPS with the most Test tons to their name. They are joint second on the all-time list, now, needing four more to join Martin Crowe as record-holder with 17.
There are also tallies, these days, to determine which international players have scored the most runs across all formats in a calendar year, and with his Seddon Park century Williamson went to fourth on that list, for all countries. The retired Kumar Sangakarra owns that record with 2868 scored in 2014, and it’s feasible for Williamson (currently 2633) to threaten it in the three upcoming ANZ ODIs.
List of host countries where Kane Williamson has played but hasn't hit an international century: USA
— Michael Wagener (@Mykuhl) December 20, 2015
The only other players to have made more runs across all formats in a year are Ricky Ponting (twice) and Angelo Mathews, but they all played more matches in their golden year to reach those heights.
The numbers and stats from Williamson’s 2015 will tell a story for decades to come, but if you want to know more about what Williamson’s year really means, you only had to look at the proud faces of his teammates and his coaches and support staff as he stepped up to accept his man of the match award in Hamilton.
They are the people who watch Kane Williamson practise day in and day out, and listen to him calmly discussing his batting, and the tiny intricacies that he thinks he needs to work on.
So pleased for the young king were they that there may even have been a sneaky tear.
