Williamson masterclass gives fresh hope
Even Indian batting champion Sunil Gavaskar was moved to say: ‘ It is a joy to watch the New Zealand skipper bat.’
e’s a gem, Kane Williamson. His eighth ODI century, 118 off 128 balls at Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla, gave New Zealand just enough runs to hold off India and put themselves on the board for the first time on tour.
Williamson is level with Stephen Fleming and with only Nathan Astle ( 16), Ross Taylor ( 15) and Martin Guptill ( 10) ahead of him. Give him time. Six of his eight, incidentally, have been scored overseas.
He played and missed outside off early on and was dropped twice, so you couldn’t call it his finest work by a long chalk.
But it was still a terrific performance, clearly battling fatigue, and a problem with his left arm.
He is a special player and how New Zealand needed him yesterday. Even Indian batting champion Sunil Gavaskar was moved to say: “It is a joy to watch the New Zealand skipper bat.”
This was around the time Gavaskar got angry at all the water stops the New Zealand batsmen were taking, chuntering on on about how the Indian players in his day had a drink every two hours at the scheduled breaks, without taking any heed of what might be broadly termed health concerns playing sport in debilitating conditions.
Williamson is now in elite company, averaging more than 50 in ODIs away from home. He is going at 50.82, a fabulous achievement. His 47.33 is 12th highest alltime ODI average.
New Zealand’s tail failed to wag in Delhi, but they felt they had enough runs on a pitch known not to be a 320 vs 310 strip, and so it proved.
The bowlers worked hard and Tim Southee managed a spectacular catch off his own bowling, to remove MS Dhoni, changing direction and clutching the ball low to his right in a fine piece of athleticism. It wasn’t in the league of Shane Bond’s wonder take off Cameron White in Wellington in 2007. If you saw that you’ll always remember it.
Then Southee was on the job in the final over, 10 needed, when he yorked Jasprit Bumrah, in a case of the biter being bitten, Bumrah having done precisely the same to Southee about three hours earlier.
Add in the bizarre over from Guptill, a 10- baller including four wides and two wickets, and it was a game full of interesting moments.
Most significantly, by far, it was a win for New Zealand, and right now they’ll take them any way they can. Roll on Mohali tomorrow night.
It has breathed fresh life into a tour which was going down the pan.
Five international games, five lost tosses though. Some things don’t change.
Evidently Williamson — and Taylor, filling in in the second test — had called tails in four straight tosses and lost the lot. At Delhi, according to the commentator Ravi Shastri, Williamson called heads, and still got it wrong.
On to Mohali and a chance to get their nose in front in the ODI series. Now that would mark a significant moment on the tour.