Yesterday Kane Williamson pretty much sealed his destiny as Aotearoa's greatest batsman ever. Stats and records can help reinforce this, but at this point of time, if need stats to tell you how good Kane Williamson is, then you're a bit lazy. We've moved past the point of being amazed by the numbers that Williamson dishes up, we know he'll score almost a million runs for Aotearoa and we know his Test average is going to rival the game's greats. Stats don't tell us anything new, or offer the true beauty of Williamson's work.

Watching Williamson's cover drive however, certainly does.

With all due respect to Martin Crowe, I've only seen replays of him batting. Crowe was before my time and while we were consistently reminded of Crowe's standing in Test cricket, I grew up watching Stephen Fleming and Nathan Astle. These were the batsmen that us youngsters looked up to and even then, they weren't quite 'great'.

As glorious as Fleming looked, elegantly stroking the ball to the boundary, my memory is littered with Fleming being dismissed after falling around his front-pad.

As dynamic a ball-striker as Astle was, every block-busting cut shot was countered by a cheap dismissal, frustrating you because you'd be reminded every couple of innings of Astle's ability.

Astle and Fleming were idols for many, yet they weren't in Crowe's class and they definitely aren't in Williamson's either. When I was growing up, perhaps I thought that being rather good but not great was all that us kiwi battlers could muster. Then came this Williamson kid, Aotearoa's Golden Child, who emerged on the scene with a library full of yarns about his lust for throw-downs.

And this is merely the beginning. Williamson has drawn level with Crowe in Test centuries and it's a historic moment for many kiwis who did live through Crowe's career as they have been lucky enough to witness both, along with the symbolic passing of the torch from one kiwi great, to another.

For me, this was a matter of time and after watching Williamson score runs around the world, against various opposition, Williamson now sits at the start line. Now that Williamson has caught up to Crowe's feats, the future beckons and while cricketing stats are salivated over, Williamson's future goes far beyond stats.

We know Williamson is going to score a few runs and we know that the cricket-stat world is his oyster. That's a given. We can now look forward to how Williamson develops as a batsman; he's already got all the strokes so what can Williamson unleash next?

While you get giddy when Williamson ticks over a new record, I'll be waiting for Williamson to invent a new shot or to come up with an out-of-this-world plan to combat a spinner. That's genuinely what Williamson is capable of and as cricket evolves at a rapid pace, Williamson will be at the forefront of that evolution as a batsman who simply has more time and more strokes that most batsmen.

Williamson's stats won't tell you the story of how he learns his craft as a captain and how he takes this Blackcaps team forward. With each Test series, we are going to see Williamson tasked with a different challenge, a different set of decisions that he has to get right as the skipper and that's going to be fun to observe. His runs as captain will obviously be crucial, how he leads and the culture that he drives in the Blackcaps will be of greater importance to kiwi cricket.

We'll all remember Brendon McCullum for his impact on kiwi cricket and I reckon I was guilty of waving in the Kane Williamson era to quickly. Just because Williamson took over, didn't mean his era had begun and it's been a slow process to get to this point where it feels as though the Kane Williamson era has begun.

Williamson has finished the race of catching up to Crowe and he's now at the starting line staring into the next decade where Williamson will lead kiwi cricket into vastly different cricketing landscape. I certainly wouldn't overlook Williamson's mana either, mana which is not restricted to Aotearoa. When Williamson showcases his craft in front of new audiences around the world, these people in foreign countries are treated to the majestic show that we see every summer in our own backyard.

Williamson for example, won't be caught up in a battle similar to Steve Smith vs Virat Kohli. Williamson's mana will lead to Indian fans celebrating his arrival to the crease in the same fashion as they do with AB de Villiers. Williamson's mana will lead to English fans at Lord's tipping their hats to the humble kiwi lad and this mana can't be represented by stats.

No stat can offer me the same feeling as a Kane Williamson cover-drive, or a textbook forward-defence, or a powerful pull-shot; I feel it deep within my cricket-lovin' soul. So just don't bother with your Williamson stats because this lad goes far beyond a few numbers.