Why Kane Williamson is New Zealand's greatest cricketer
Tuesday, 16 June 2026
Mark Reason is a Stuff sports columnist
OPINION: Bob Monkhouse used to say; “People laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian …Well, they’re not laughing now.” It’s a joke that makes me think of Kane Williamson in that it is utterly brilliant and utterly self-deprecating.
You can almost imagine Williamson saying in the same vein, “People cheered when I said I wanted to be a test batsman … well they’re not cheering now.”
The point is that there was never anything flash about Williamson. His genius was always understated. Williamson played the ball so late he might have been an undertaker. There wasn’t a flurry of fast hands and the crack of willow on leather like there was with ‘Baz’. There was just the softest ‘pop’ as Williamson worked the ball past the infield.
There can have been fewer greater pleasures in life these past 16 years than sitting on the bank at the Basin Reserve on a still day with the sun slanting in over the sea and watching Williamson, as he let the delivery come to him, waiting until surely it was all too late, before he gently leaned in and eased the ball to the mid on boundary.
We shall miss him.
We shall miss the harmony that Williamson brought to the test team after a period when the rift between Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor had threatened to tear it apart. We shall miss Williamson’s decency. We shall miss the modesty of a man who sometimes seemed to epitomise the New Zealand ‘man alone’, the coat hanger from Tauranga, held together by number eight wire rather than tendons.
When Williamson decided last week that it was time to step away from the game, he said, “I stand here to announce my retirement from test cricket.”
There wasn’t a punch line. Those came on the field. Just 10 words, seven of them monosyllables, and three of them boundaries.
His former coach Gary Stead has this week marvelled at the humbleness of the man, the mental strength and the sheer work ethic. When Williamson first came to international cricket as a callow youngster, he was mocked by older team-mates for his desire to learn and his desire to practise and improve. Now he stands as an example to them all.
Williamson said before he shuffled off into the sunset; 'One of my little things, I would remind myself, and you feel different every day, is that the runs aren't yours. They're of service. And that's what draws a lot out of you, because what's enough? And so you do everything you can to be a little bit better and give more, and that's how I've gone about my career. Also, it's brought a lot of joy when you give them [the runs] to something else, rather than [it] being about you all the time.'
It is an extraordinary statement in a game that sometimes seemed designed to bring out the selfishness in people, particularly batsmen, with all that time alone, the introspection, the averages, the comparisons with others.
Of Williamson’s contemporaries Steve Smith has a higher average and Joe Root has scored more runs. And some people like to point out that Williamson’s average of under 40 against the best test teams like Australia, India and England is not quite as good as it might be. They miss a crucial factor in all of this.
Smith, Root and Kohli each slid in to number four. Smith has had Marcus Labuschagne to give him an extra level of protection, Kohli had Pujara and Root had whichever sap was next in line to fail for England.
But Williamson sacrificed a better average for the good of the team. When Ross Taylor retired he could have easily slid down to number four, but that just isn’t Williamson. It was always about the team.
The pinnacle of Williamson’s career must surely be the victory in the final of the World Test Championship at Southampton in 2021. India had a team of stars and their batting lineup just glittered (Sharma, Gill, Punjara, Kohli, Rahane, Pant, Jadeja).
New Zealand were a team made in Williamson’s image. The Kiwis were tough. BJ Watling had been known to keep with a dislocated finger and Neil Wagner had bowled with a broken toe.
They would need all of that resilience because the conditions for that match on the south coast were challenging. The ball was swinging and seaming. The centre needed to hold.
As things turned out, Kyle Jamieson, a bowler who Williamson always got far more out of as a leader than anyone else, went on to win the man-of-the-match award. But it was the captain who was the glue. It was the captain who was the number eight wire which bound the team together.
After India had been bowled out for 217, New Zealand started well, but then fell into a mid innings crisis. Williamson held firm. He scored 49 off 177 balls in just under five hours at the crease. The innings allowed the tail to score invaluable runs. It allowed New Zealand to take a precious first innings lead.
And at the end of the second innings, Williamson was still there, 52 not out. He outshone all the Indian stars. He outscored them and he ‘out-averaged them’ by over 50 runs in a low scoring game. He also outfought them.
Williamson turned to Taylor, Pakeha and Pasifika bringing New Zealand home together.
“Yeah,” he said.
There might have been another word in there.
It was redemption after the cruel loss to England in the 2019 World Cup final. When he was told that he was the man of the tournament after that defeat, Williamson said, “Me?” There was genuine surprise. Me was never a word Williamson had much use for.
It is telling that he averaged over 80 in New Zealand victories, more then any of the rest of group (Kohli, Smith, Root and Williamson) dubbed ‘the fab four’ by Martin Crowe. In fact, Williamson’s average of 81.1 in victories is second only to Sir Don Bradman among men with more than 10 test wins. That is a wondrous achievement.
Or to put it another way, Kane Williamson is the man who put the ‘me’ in ‘team’. And that is why I would place him above even Sir Richard Hadlee as New Zealand’s greatest ever cricketer.