Kane Williamson joins exclusive club with 30th test century for Black Caps
Monday, 5 February 2024
ANALYSIS: Cherish every ball you get to see Kane Williamson face in the middle.
Even when they’re being delivered by an attack that would look more at home in the Plunket Shield than a test match.
For the 49th time in 149 innings batting at No 3 for the Black Caps, he walked out to bat on Sunday with his side’s score still in single figures.
He made his way back from the middle on Monday morning, just shy of eight-and-a-half hours of action later, having made his 30th test century – 118 off 239 balls – in the first innings of the first test against South Africa.
Williamson is now the 16th member of a rather exclusive club. He sits level with Matthew Hayden, Joe Root and Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Left behind on 29 are Don Bradman and Virat Kohli. Next in his sights with 32 are two Australian Steves – Waugh and Smith.
If Williamson has at least another three summers in him – he’s currently playing in his 14th – Kumar Sangakkara’s mark of 38 looks well within his reach. Ricky Ponting’s 41, Jacques Kallis’ 45 and Sachin Tendulkar’s 51 are probably beyond him, though it would be something if he could pip the former Australian captain.
What stands out about the New Zealander compared to his 15 peers in that upper echelon is the rate at which he reaches three figures. He gets there once every 5.6 innings – more often than anyone else with 30 tons.
Williamson’s century at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui was his seventh in his last eight tests on New Zealand soil. The lone exception was at the same venue against England a year ago, in a day-night pink-ball test.
When he’s dealing to the red ball, he is currently seven from seven, with centuries against the West Indies in Hamilton and Pakistan in Mount Maunganui in 2020, Pakistan in Christchurch in 2021, and England in Wellington and Sri Lanka in Christchurch and Wellington in 2023 before this.
He will be at short odds to make it eight from eight in Hamilton next week, as South Africa’s patchwork touring attack doesn’t look like posing the Black Caps too many problems. They were accurate, but not threatening, and when Williamson did depart, it was because he went on the attack, needlessly swinging at a nothing ball and offering up a catch.
It was eerily similar to the chance he gave on day one, off the same bowler – the naggingly accurate Ruan de Swardt. In both cases, it almost seemed as if he was becoming bored by what was in front of him.
Williamson will know a chance at a big one went begging, though with three double centuries already among his ongoing purple patch at home, and with his body increasingly feeling wear and tear, no-one will begrudge him the chance to put his feet up.
Yet at the same time, every time you watch him bat now, you want him to bat forever, because his recent injury absences have hammered home the fact that New Zealand’s greatest batter won’t be around forever.
If he plays in the three remaining tests this summer – the other two against Australia – he will be the sixth New Zealander to play 100, with Tim Southee on track to become the fifth in the same match, at Hagley Oval in Christchurch in March.
Now that Williamson has joined the 30-century club, the next big milestone in his sights is 10,000 runs. He needs 1619 more to reach a mark 14 men have achieved before him, though by the time he gets there – if indeed he does – two more, Kohli and Smith, will likely have made it too.
If he scores at his current average of 54.77, it will take him roughly 30 innings – or 15 tests – to get there. With 12 more on the cards in 2024 – six of them at home – this year looms as one where he can go a long way to further cementing his greatness.