Kane Williamson - A Modern-Day 'Great' Unlike Any Other 'King'

Cricket is a pretty simple game: for the batters, it is about scoring runs, and for the bowlers, it is about taking wickets. In the modern era where every cricketer has an eye-catching celebration after reaching a milestone or likes to indulge in a heated or animated conversation either for the cameras or to let his emotions out of the system, New Zealand run-machine Kane Williamson is an exception in every sense.

Neither does he have any extraordinary celebrations, nor does he like to waste his energy exchanging verbal volleys with the opposition. He likes to let his bat do all the talking, and he has been doing that extraordinarily well.

In the recently concluded Test series at home against South Africa, Kane Williamson slammed a staggering 403 runs in a mere four innings. The astonishing part is that he slammed three tons and helped the Black Caps register a 2-0 whitewash over the Proteas in their 92-year rivalry.

Kane Williamson's World Record Feats

• Fastest batter to 32 Test hundreds in only 172 innings, beating Australia's Steve Smith record by a gap of two innings
• 5 hundreds in the fourth innings of a Test match, joint highest alongside Pakistan great Younis Khan
• Converted the last eight 50-plus scores into hundreds, second only to Sir Donald Bradman with 12 scores.
• Five consecutive hundreds on home soil, equaling Sir Don Bradman and Steve Smith's records

Since December 2022, Kane Williamson has slammed a doubled hundred against Pakistan, peeled off hundreds against England and Sri Lanka for fun, an away hundred against Bangladesh, and now comes the South African demolition with three tons on home soil. This guy must be doing something right, which the other so-called superstars aren't.

Kane Williamson - the least celebrated amongst the Fab 4?

The current Fab 4: Steve Smith, Joe Root, Kane Williamson, and Virat Kohli, and if one can add Babar Azam too into the mix, on any given day, cricket fans around the world are unlikely to pick the Kiwi legend as their number one pick in the current world test XI. Reasons may go beyond cricketing reasons and defy logic, but the truth is that these top-quality batters have one thing in common: to score runs in all conditions and against all oppositions.

Even then, certain metrics need to be considered. For example: consistency, quality of the attack, runs in a winning cause, and most importantly, the situation of the game. Kane Williamson has aced all those metrics and has come out with flying colors every time he has gone out to bat for the Black Caps.

When compared with the Fab 4 plus Babar Azam, Williamson isn't too far behind on any front, be it runs scored or hundreds smashed over the last three years in red-ball cricket.

'Fab 4' since January 2021 in Tests

• Kane Williamson: Matches- 16, Runs - 1789, HS - 238, Avg - 71.56, 100s - 09, 50s - 01
• Steve Smith: Matches - 32, Runs - 2397, HS - 200*, Avg - 49.93, 100s - 06, 50s - 12
• Joe Root: Matches - 41, Runs - 3670, HS - 228, Avg - 52.48, 100s - 13, 50s - 11
• Virat Kohli: Matches - 26, Runs - 1530, HS - 186, Avg - 35.58, 100s - 02, 50s - 07
• Babar Azam: Matches - 23, Runs - 1853, HS - 196, Avg - 46.32, 100s - 04, 50s - 11

Kane Williamson's average of 71.56 beats the rest of the pack quite easily, as the second-best average of 52.48 belongs to England's Joe Root. The England batsman also has the most hundreds (13) during the time but has taken 41 matches, while Williamson's nine tons have come in only 16 Tests, more than half the amount of matches taken by Root. That tells us something about the Kiwi batter's consistency at the highest level.

The 33-year-old batsman, who is already the highest run-getter in Test cricket for New Zealand, is less than 400 runs away from entering 9000 runs in cricket's purest format. Given the red-hot form he is in, expect Kane to enter the club sooner rather than later.

Can Kane Williamson top the Fab 4 charts?

Taking the age into consideration, Virat Kohli is 35, Steve Smith stands at 34, while Joe Root and Kane Williamson are the youngest of the lot at 33 each. While Virat Kohli has shown a resurgence in white-ball cricket in the past 18 months or so, his numbers in red-ball cricket aren't the best ones. Based on the current form, Virat Kohli is the weakest link amongst the Fab 4 in cricket's purest format.

Something similar can be said about Steve Smith who has found it hard to score at a level, which the fans are expected to see him in Test cricket. He has donned the role of an opener for Australia post-David Warner's retirement and is yet to own the position. Things change pretty quickly in Australian cricket, like they do in English cricket as well.

Joe Root can be the closest competitor to Kane Williamson, in the coming years, given the amount of Test cricket England plays in a calendar year. Root hasn't been at his best against India, and though there is no imminent threat to his place in the Test XI, a bad season can change things pretty drastically for the former England skipper.

This leaves us to Kane Williamson, the man-in-form. Given the red-hot form he is in, the Kiwi batsman has at least a minimum of three to four years left at his disposal. With 32 Test tons already and counting, Kane Williamson has shown that he has a massive appetite for big runs. If he can sustain the same form in the current World Test Championship cycle, one can expect him to reach the 40-Test ton club in a couple of years.

Those who love Test cricket to the core, are left highly surprised purely because of the way, Kane Williamson never gets the respect and the spotlight that he deserves. That is largely because he is not an in-your-face kind of batter like Virat Kohli or Kevin Pieterson.

Another reason could be that he comes from New Zealand, a country known to play gentleman's game and keep the spirit of the game above individual records. Remember the way he kept his calm, after losing the 2019 World Cup Final to England at Lord's. Just imagine Virat Kohli in that scenario, and you would know what a fine cricketer, Kane has been not just to New Zealand cricket, but to world cricket as a role model.

Kane Williamson embodies everything that is associated with New Zealand cricket - play hard but play fair. His career trajectory is similar to that of Rahul Dravid or Jacques Kallis - invaluable but ignored at times, due to the presence of superstars around him. Cricket has a place for every single character, every person has to find a way to reach his destination - some choose to do it the more fiery way, while others like Kane take the cool path to glory.

Kane Williamson has a long way to go before he hangs his boots, but in the meantime, if we as fans cannot admire the greatness unfolding in front of our very own eyes, it is a real shame, not just to Kane's ability but also to cricket in general. The Kiwi champion deserves nothing less - be it accolades or records, as he will certainly go down as one of the best batters of his generation to have ever graced the game.

Keep going, Kane. You are a champion beyond words and anyone's understanding and imagination.

Read More: Is Ravichandran Ashwin India's Best Bowler in Test History?

(The author is a cricket expert and has worked as a sports writer for broadcast and multimedia platforms for nearly a decade.)