Kaptain Kane, his white floppy protects his brain, here to maintain B-Mac's flame.

Kane Williamson is our best batsman, he'll go down as our greatest batsman ever and he's about to take over as skipper of the BLACKCAPS. Williamson is the hot favourite to lead a BLACKCAPS team that has already welcomed with open arms a golden generation of cricketers and will do the same with a new wave of highly talented youngsters, who are eager to make their mark.

Williamson's story though starts with Brendon McCullum and it's only right to include McCullum in on this yarn. McCullum is the man who completely changed how the BLACKCAPS play and how the public perceives this team (who will be known as the BAPS from here on).

After his final Test, McCullum said how he thanked his comrades for following his lead in showing vulnerability or leaving themselves vulnerable to failure. This struck a cord with me as it told the story of McCullum's own journey as a cricketer and a leader, it offers context to one of the most polarizing figures in kiwi sport. McCullum batted how he batted, which I label as 'pinch-hitting' and from the outside it looked as though McCullum was always fighting a battle with his style of willow wielding. Once McCullum became comfortable with leaving himself vulnerable to immense criticism that comes with the failure of playing what many would consider a horrible cricket shot, he seemed at peace.

That McCullum was able to spread this openness to vulnerability amongst his team is a mark of his impact as a leader. Like many, I found great frustration in Tim Southee's inability to simply defend but I have little doubts that Southee - like many BAPS players - were simply following McCullum's lead, leaving themselves vulnerable to failure and ruthless criticism. That McCullum had players who were not only eager to follow him but also good enough to execute correctly more often than not was a slice of luck that perhaps other skippers haven't enjoyed.

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I refuse to find negativity in McCullum's leadership. I can't, not when McCullum's influence was so dramatic on NZ Cricket. Whether it was how he batted, how he encouraged his team to play or his aggressive high-stakes captaincy, McCullum left himself and his team vulnerable to failure more than anyone else in BAPS history and perhaps world cricket. Many have taken the safer route, opting to defend more than attack, setting defensive fields and grinding their way to victory, but this simply wasn't McCullum.

Outside of cricket, McCullum's leadership can still inspire; be yourself and be yourself without fault.

As kiwi cricket fans, we simply had to accept that this was a risky way of operating. I had no dramas with this and it's why I don't see the holes that I see Williamson filling in McCullum's leadership as negatives.

Williamson has done his apprenticeship under McCullum, soaking up every bit of wisdom McCullum offered and getting his own taste of captaincy when McCullum was either injured or rested. There has been a clear pathway developed for Williamson to step into the captain's role and I would argue that this has been done to near perfection. Williamson has been groomed for this job, which when you compare to how Ross Taylor and McCullum were put against each other in a captaincy campaign and then how McCullum took the job off Taylor, is a far better situation.

It remains to be seen what sort of skipper Williamson will be, however after enjoying Williamson's career so far, I think I've built quite a nice image of Williamson the skipper in my mind. This isn't overly difficult as I don't think many would say that Williamson and McCullum are similar cricketers, I wouldn't go as far as saying that they are opposites but they go about their cricketing business in vastly different ways. I do however think that Williamson's apprenticeship has allowed him to pick up the bits of McCullum's captaincy that he likes and mix them in with his own traits.

I believe that Williamson will share McCullum's attacking/aggressive instincts as skipper and will keep this team traveling down a similar path. We simply haven't seen enough of Williamson's captaincy to know anything for certain but I've got Williamson as the smartest cricketing brain in Aotearoa, already. We all know that Williamson is a highly talented sportsman, a natural, however after 5 or so years of watching Williamson closely, it's hard to fight the feeling that Williamson was designed to play cricket.

Williamson was designed to note every technical element of batsmanship.

Williamson was designed to flow the ebs and flows of cricket.

Combine this freakish gift for cricket that is shared by Williamson's peers - who also double as their teams best batsman and skipper (Steve Smith and Virat Kohli) - with an opportunity to develop his captaincy craft under McCullum and I think we have a bloke who could be our greatest skipper ever. McCullum will go down in history as a leader who had an immense impact on the BAPS and in a truly great and positive manner, McCullum will go down as the bridge.

The bridge between the old ways of kiwi cricket and the new generation, led by Williamson.

Without McCullum, there won't (or wouldn't) be this future that we are gazing at under Williamson and that's possibly the greatest tribute I can pay to McCullum.

McCullum's tenure coincided with the emergence of a few world-class cricketers, guys like Tim Southee, Trent Boult, BJ Watling and Williamson himself. That was nice but under Williamson we will see the next and what I believe to be a much better generation of cricketers come through under the guidance of a strong core of leaders (Williamson, Taylor, Southee, Boult and Watling).

One look at the recent Under-19 World Cup suggests that kiwi cricket isn't in the best state after a woeful effort from our Under-19 team. This neglects a group of cricketers who are between the ages of 20 and 25, who have been playing domestic cricket for a number of seasons and will work their way into the BAPS in the very near future. Of course, many are already in this team with Tom Latham, Henry Nicholls, Mitchell Santner, Corey Anderson, Ish Sodhi, Doug Bracewell and Matt Henry enjoying varying degrees of success despite their youth.

Williamson will not only combine his own cricketing brain with what he learned from McCullum, he will also enjoy a settled foundation of players who will generally only be absent through injury. Talented youngsters will be sprinkled on top of this core unit and under Williamson's guidance we will see a team that should tick all the boxes: talent, aggression/intent to win, experience, youth and Test cricket nous or patience.

For all his great work, McCullum won't lead the BLACKCAPS into the future, he won't lead what I view as the most talented collection of kiwi cricketers we've seen. That honour will fall on the shoulders of Williamson, who himself will go down in history as one of, if not the best kiwi cricketer ever. It only feels right doesn't it?