Kane Williamson Remains The Greatest And Here Are A Bunch Of Stats To Prove It
Kane Williamson just keeps on scoring runs. Usually in bulks of one hundred at a time. When he did his knee last year, he’d just come off a double ton against Sri Lanka, his third in his previous four Test innings. Folks were freaking out about whether he’d ever be the same batsman again... then he came back ahead of scheduled and scored a bunch of runs at the World Cup (albeit hampered by a freak thumb injury), before making his return to the Test arena in Bangladesh where he immediately scored another century.
Then, after some brief limited overs stuff earlier in the summer, came this recent South African visit. And, yeah, the Proteas weren’t at full strength as the Blackcaps claimed their first ever Test series victory against that lot (meaning that the first eight Test nations have all now won at least one series against each other). But that was their problem, you play against whoever’s in front of you and Kane Williamson scores runs against everyone. Cue scores of 118, 109, 43, and 133*.
That last one, of course, was a pleasant stroll out in the middle on the way to a successful fourth innings run chase that ranks as the seventh highest ever on New Zealand soil. The 62nd highest across all countries... so hardly a terrifying target (thanks to Will O’Rourke cleaning things up in the third innings on debut) but with Kane Williamson out there, there was never any doubt. That zen-mindset would have changed immediately had he been dismissed... but if you were worried about that then you only had to think back to last year when Williamson scored an unbeaten 121 against Sri Lanka to guide Aotearoa to a two-wicket win in which he sealed victory off the final ball of the match. Perfectly timed, just like his cover drives. This is what he does. He scores runs and he wins games of cricket – often the latter on account of the former.
Fourth Innings Automatic
This was the 13th time that the Blackcaps have win a game with a fourth innings chase since Williamson debuted (the 43rd instance overall). Here’s how he’s tracked in those 13 matches...
56 vs West Indies in Hamilton 2013 (Team Total: 124/2)
31* vs Sri Lanka in Christchurch 2014 (107/2)
108* vs Sri Lanka in Hamilton 2015 (189/5)
61 vs Pakistan in Christchurch 2016 (108/2)
104* vs Bangladesh in Wellington 2017 (217/3)
DNB vs Bangladesh in Christchurch 2017 (111/1)
DNB vs India in Wellington 2020 (9/0)
5 vs India in Christchurch 2020 (132/3)
52* vs India in Southampton 2021 (140/2)
121* vs Sri Lanka in Christchurch 2023 (285/8)
11 vs Bangladesh in Mirpur 2023 (139/6)
133* vs South Africa in Hamilton 2024 (269/3)
Additionally, he didn’t play in a small winning chase (41/2) against England in Birmingham. That was the game played just prior to the World Test Championship final in which several key players were rested. The WTC final was the 52not he scored against India in Southampton there... one of only two of these winning chases to unfold on foreign soil, curiously.
In fourth innings wins, Williamson averages a mind-blowing 170.5 with 682 runs from just 10 innings with 4 hundreds and 3 fifties. All four of those hundreds were undismissed, meaning he was still out there as the winning runs were scored – he’s the only man in history to have done that four times. Graeme Smith (3), Ricky Ponting (3) and Joe Root (2) are the only other players who’ve experienced that multiple times.
Graeme Smith does have another victorious fourth innings hundred in there too, he just got dismissed before the end, hence he and Williamson share the record for the most hundreds in successful fourth innings chases. Each with four, but Smith achieved his from 22 innings whereas Williamson has only 10. Yes, that’s ten spelled T-E-N in case you thought that was a typo. Nobody with at least 10 such innings has an average comparable to that 170.50 of KW’s... the next best is Gregg Chappell at 108.66 and he scored less than half as many runs. Ricky Ponting has 3 hundreds in successful fourth innings chases. Nobody else has more than two.
Meanwhile in fourth innings defeats, KW has scored 200 runs from 12 innings at 16.66 with only one fifty. In draws he has only batted four times but he does have a 102-not-out against South Africa from back in 2012, guiding the side through for a draw with four wickets remaining after having been 83/5with more than 40 overs remaining. That’s a huge disparity but it’s probably a normal one. Fourth innings chases are not built alike. Sometimes you’re hooning towards a total under 50. Other times it’s 450 on the cards. Sometimes you’ve got three days to score the runs, other times you’ve got to step on the gas in the final session, balancing wickets in hand and weather above in the process.
Okay then, take out the winning aspect and how does Williamson rank? Still first with 5 hundreds in fourth innings – level with Younis Khan and again he’s done so from way fewer efforts.
Best Fourth Innings Averages Of All Time (min. 15 inns)
Don Bradman – 734 runs at 73.40 average with 3 100s (15 inns)
Geoffrey Boycott – 1234 runs at 58.76 average with 3 100s (34 inns)
Sunil Gavaskar – 1398 runs at 58.25 average with 4 100s (33 inns)
Kane Williamson – 1040 runs at 57.77 average with 5 100s (26 inns)
Jack Hobbs – 979 runs at 57.58 average with 2 100s (23 inns)
The fact that those are different names to the guys who were tallying up hundreds in wins in that previous paragraph suggests that perhaps some tame draws are padding things out. Then again, runs are still runs no matter how or where you score them and someone like Sir Donald Bradman didn’t really need to grind things out in the fourth because he’d probably already scored heaps in his previous knock. So for the next trick let’s leave the fourth innings specifics aside and just focus on wins fullstop.
Winning Cricket
This is a Kane Williamson article but after the series we just witness it’d be rude not to point out that the man who replaced Williamson as captain, and who is likely to share a very significant milestone in the second Test against Australia next month when they bring up their 100th Test appearances together (they also shared their 50th matches), just did something special. Tim Southee has now drawn level with Luteru Ross Taylor for the most Test wins for New Zealand.
Most Test Wins For The Blackcaps
Ross Taylor/Tim Southee – 44
Kane Williamson – 43
Tom Latham – 40
Trent Boult – 38
After which we’ve got Dan Vettori and BJ Watling on 34, Stephen Fleming with 33, Neil Wagner is up to 32, and then Brendon McCullum and Henry Nicholls each have won 30. Spare a thought for the great Bert Sutcliffe who played 42 Tests between 1947-65 and never won a single match. Ross Taylor scored 10 of his hundreds in victories averaging 55.45. Tom Latham has 8 tons at 45.54 in wins. You won’t be shocked to know that Henry Nicholls averages 55.28 in wins, which includes 8 of his 9 Test hundies.
Those are great numbers but they pale in comparison to the legend of Kane who has scored 4994 runs with 21 hundreds at an average of 81.86 in wins. Of players with at least 20 innings, this is what that looks like across the entire history of Test cricket...
Highest Average In Test Wins (Min. 20 Inns)
Donald Bradman – 4813 runs at 130.08 ave (23 100s)
Kane Williamson – 4994 runs at 81.86 ave (21 100s)
Inzamam-ul-Haq – 4690 runs at 78.16 ave (17 100s)
Garfield Sobers – 3097 runs at 77.42 ave (12 100s)
Younis Khan – 4910 runs at 74.39 ave (19 100s)
These are the batters who have most influenced their nation’s success across the eras. Obviously a few of the great Aussie and Indian teams of the past couple decades had the batting talent to share the load much more but it’s a known adage that when you’re second only to Don Bradman then you’re doing something right. And as this article unfolds there are a lot of stats where Williamson seems to be second only to Bradman.
Also, since Tim Southee already got a shout out as the new captain, here’s what Kane Williamson has achieved under Southee’s captaincy so far...
18 INNS | 1298 RUNS | 215 HS | 86.53 AVE | 8 100s | 0 50s
A Gluttony of Tons
After adding another 403 Test runs to his tally during this South African series, Williamson is now up to 8666 overall – good for 25th all-time. Still well on course to reach that illustrious fifth-figure as only 14 men have currently achieved... although Steve Smith is just a few hundred runs away and will get there before KW. It’ll be a good race between Virat Kohli on 8848 and Williamson on 8666 though. Every single player ahead of Williamson has played more matches than him. Only Steve Smith and Kumar Sangakkara have higher averages. Those are incredible numbers, especially for a New Zealander. While the current Blackcaps do get to play more Tests than those of previous generations, they still don’t play as often as the big three of Australia, India, and especially England who’ve all arguably tipped beyond the line of excess.
However it’s the hundreds that Williamson feasts upon which show his greatness in the most glowing light. This South African series was the first time he’s scored three in a single series, add in the Bangladesh series and he’s already topped his hundreds tally from each of the two previous World Test Championship cycles (he scored three hundies in each). With 32 Test centuries, Kane Williamson is tied for 11th all-time, alongside Steve Smith and Steve Waugh. Again, every player ahead of him has played way more.
Let’s break that down further. Kane Williamson has scored a hundred in 18.6% of his Test bats. That’s the sixth-highest ratio ever, with those ahead of him all being players from much older eras... including Aotearoa’s own John F. Reid who hit 6 100s in 31 innings at 19.35%. Needless to say, Don Bradman leads the way with a hundred in 36.25% of his innings. That’s better than one in three. Outrageous.
When Williamson reached a century in both innings of the first Test vs SA, we’d witnessed the 92nd instance of that happening. Warren Bardsley did so first for England in 1909 and prior to Kanos, the most recent had been Najmul Hossain Shanto for Bangladesh vs Afghanistan in June 2023. Other New Zealanders to have tonned in both innings of the same match are: Glenn Turner (vs Australia in 1974), Geoff Howarth (vs England in 1978), Andrew Jones (vs Sri Lanka in 1991), and Peter Fulton (vs England in 2014).
Three hundreds in a two-Test series is not a unique feat either... though it is a rare one. Aravinda de Silva has done it twice, he was the first to manage it (more Test playing nations have led to shorter series, so it’s a recent phenomenon). Between him and Williamson it had also been done by Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla, Kumar Sangakkara, Younis Khan, and Marnus Labuschagne. This also ties the NZ-record for hundreds in a series with Andrew Jones (vs Sri Lanka in 1991), Ross Taylor (vs West Indies in 2013), and Daryl Mitchell (vs England in 2022)... each of those others came in three-match series.
These are all the grounds at which Kane Williamson has scored hundreds...
Seddon Park, Hamilton NZ x6
Basin Reserve, Wellington NZ x5
Bay Oval, Mt Maunganui NZ x3
Eden Park, Auckland NZ x2
Hagley Oval, Christchurch NZ x2
Brisbane Cricket Ground, Brisbane AU
Kensington Oval, Barbados WI
Lords, London ENG
Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad IND
National Stadium, Karachi PAK
P Sara Oval, Colombo SL
Queen’s Sports Club, Bulawayo ZIM
Sabina Park, Jamaica WI
Sharjah Cricket Stadium, Sharjah UAE
Sylhet International Cricket Stadium, Sylhet BAN
University Oval, Dunedin NZ
WACA Ground, Perth AU
Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, Chattogram BAN
Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi UAE
Count ‘em all up: 19 different Test venues at which he’s raised his bat for a hundred. Not a record because Tendulkar scored hundreds at 31 different grounds (Sachin’s numbers are astonishingly consistent – he averaged 40+ in every country including 50+ in both Australia and England). Tell you one thing though, Sachin Tendulkar never scored a hundred in Zimbabwe, despite seven attempts. The only country that Williamson hasn’t tonned in is South Africa, largely because we haven’t toured there since 2016. Seeing as he’s hit hundies in both UAE and Pakistan, and also in both Jamaica and Barbados, that means 11 different nations in which Williamson’s reached triple-figures against nine different nations. The record for scoring hundreds in the most countries belongs to Brian Lara with 14... although exactly half of his were various West Indian nations.
As for Test hundreds against the most opponents, there are 14 players who’ve done so against nine different nations. Williamson is one of them and if he ever gets to play against Zimbabwe again then another hundred there would make it multiple hundreds against those nine different nations.
This feat wasn’t possible for most of Test history because there weren’t enough teams (Don Bradman’s entire career was played against England, India, South Africa, and West Indies), though it is now possible to get to ten and beyond with the inclusion of Ireland and Afghanistan. Williamson (and New Zealand) has yet to meet either of those newbies in a Test match, so we’d better get cracking with that just for Kane’s sake. The players with hundreds against nine different nations are: Atapattu, Dravid, Gilchrist, Jayawardene, Kallis, Kirsten, Lara, Mathews, Ponting, Sangakkara, Tendulkar, Waugh, Williamson & Younis Khan. Only Mathews and Williamson remain active. This is one stat that better suits the teams outside the big three.
Taken from another angle, Kane Williamson has now scored Test match centuries in 13 consecutive calendar years. He famously tonned up on debut in 2010... then didn’t get another one until 2012 but from that point onwards every year has been graced with a Williamson century. In fact, the last five have all included a double-century – that’s one thing he’s still working towards in 2024 (hey, it’s only February). Superb mahi.
It’s also true that he has top-scored in 42 different Test innings... closing in on Stephen Fleming for the NZ record. Flem top-scored in 45 innings, which Williamson would surely already have demolished except that he plays in the strongest batting era in Blackcaps history, surrounded by blokes averaging 40+ and beyond. The overall record belongs to Sachin Tendulkar with 78 top scores.
Conversion Rates
Remember that earlier bit about when Williamson scored 52-not in the fourth innings of the WTC final? Believe it or not, that was the last time he logged a fifty. Since then he’s passed the half-century mark on eight occasions and every single time he’s carried it on to make a hundred. There are three double-tons in that streak too. Also a number of scores under 20, sure, that’s how it goes, but when he gets in he goes big.
That WTC final was in June 2021 so we’re at two and a half years since a 50-range score. You have to reach back a further year on top of that to February 2020 for the last time he was dismissed in that range. That was an 89 against India in Wellington. Didn’t get to triple-figures but it was one of those 42 top-scores as he patiently anchored the Blackcaps into a first innings lead that became a 10-wicket win (one of those Did Not Bat fourth innings ones on the list above). In between those two fifties are three more hundreds, two of them doubles. Even just typing this stuff out puts a person in a state of awe.
Alas, the pesky Mr Bradman has him beat there by once converting 12 consecutive 50+ scores into hundreds between 1929 and 1931. Williamson’s streak is undefeated though so let us not talk prematurely. For his career, he’s almost up to a 50% conversion rate: 32 hundreds and 33 fifties. Big Donnie Bradman had 29 hundreds to 13 fifties but of those with at least 30 centuries... only Matthew Hayden (30/29) and Younis Khan (34/33) can top Kane Williamson’s current conversion rate (32/33).
Hometown Hero
While we’re here, enjoy a list of the twenty top Test run scorers on Aotearoa soil...
| Span | Inns | Runs | HS | Ave | 100 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kane Williamson | 2011-2024 | 77 | 4670 | 251 | 69.70 | 19 |
| Ross Taylor | 2008-2022 | 87 | 3905 | 217* | 53.49 | 12 |
| Brendon McCullum | 2004-2016 | 81 | 3591 | 302 | 47.88 | 8 |
| John Wright | 1978-1993 | 81 | 3140 | 185 | 41.86 | 10 |
| Stephen Fleming | 1994-2008 | 89 | 2947 | 192 | 33.87 | 2 |
| Tom Latham | 2014-2024 | 66 | 2738 | 264* | 44.16 | 7 |
| Daniel Vettori | 1997-2012 | 85 | 2470 | 137* | 33.37 | 4 |
| Martin Crowe | 1982-1995 | 52 | 2401 | 299 | 50.02 | 8 |
| Nathan Astle | 1996-2006 | 62 | 2175 | 222 | 39.54 | 5 |
| Henry Nicholls | 2016-2023 | 49 | 2069 | 200* | 48.11 | 8 |
| BJ Watling | 2009-2021 | 54 | 1892 | 205 | 39.41 | 4 |
| Chris Cairns | 1991-2004 | 51 | 1860 | 158 | 37.20 | 4 |
| Craig McMillan | 1998-2005 | 42 | 1760 | 142 | 47.56 | 3 |
| Andrew Jones | 1988-1995 | 42 | 1722 | 186 | 47.83 | 5 |
| Bevan Congdon | 1965-1978 | 57 | 1657 | 132 | 30.68 | 3 |
| Jeremy Coney | 1974-1987 | 44 | 1544 | 174* | 42.88 | 3 |
| Richard Hadlee | 1973-1990 | 59 | 1501 | 103 | 29.43 | 1 |
| Geoff Howarth | 1975-1985 | 45 | 1466 | 147 | 34.90 | 5 |
| Glenn Turner | 1969-1983 | 35 | 1455 | 117 | 45.46 | 3 |
| Adam Parore | 1992-2002 | 60 | 1334 | 100* | 26.15 | 1 |
Kane Williamson is miles out in front. He has the most runs. He has the best average. He has the most hundreds. He has scored 19 hundreds from 77 innings which averages out to 24.7%, in other words nearly a quarter of his home innings have led to hundreds. He’s also passed fifty another 18 times meaning that he’s reaching that mark 48.1% of the time. Of everyone with at least 3000 runs in home conditions (a list of 80 players), the only one with a better ratio of 50+ scores is... you guessed it: Sir Don.
Donald Bradman is also the only player with 3000+ runs in home Tests to have done so at a higher average than Kane Williamson. If you lower the catchment to 2500 runs then Clyde Walcott does sneak in between them with an average of 69.83 at home, though Williamson’s number has been rising lately. Give him another couple knocks and see how it looks.
Highest Batting Averages In Home Tests (min 3000 runs)
Don Bradman – 4322 runs at 98.22
Kane Williamson – 4670 runs at 69.70
Gary Sobers – 4075 runs at 66.80
Mohammad Yousuf – 3067 runs at 65.25
Steve Smith – 4701 runs at 62.68
Michael Clarke – 4654 runs at 62.05
Javed Miandad – 4481 runs at 61.38
Mike Hussey – 3794 runs at 61.19
Kumar Sangakkara – 6830 runs at 60.44
Virat Kohli – 4144 runs at 60.05
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