Williamson only comparable to all-time greats

Moving past Brendon McCullum to hold the New Zealand Test double century record outright, Williamson was at his brilliant best in Karachi, pushing his side into a strong first-innings lead, and doing much of the lifting with the lower order.

Six wickets down after passing Pakistan’s 438, Williamson was masterful with the tail, highlighted by a partnership of 154 with Ish Sodhi at No.8, the second-highest partnership of the innings. He hid No.11 Ajaz Patel excellently in order to reach the milestone, bringing up his 200 with a single off the spin of Abrar Ahmed.

New skipper Tim Southee called his former leader in for New Zealand’s declaration upon reaching the mark, meaning Williamson’s ten-hour stay at the crease, which included 21 fours and a six, would remain unblemished.

Surprisingly handing Test captaincy reigns to Southee a fortnight ago, those in the cricket world were intrigued of what Williamson could do without the burden of the role, and the 32-year-old showed us a man arguably even better with the bat.

It was obvious Williamson had a clear mind in his Karachi knock: assured in his footwork and in strokeplay, but also eagle-eyed in focus, having overturned two lbw decisions on 13 and 116.

If this is a taste of what’s to come from Williamson in the red-ball format sans captaincy, we could well see his batting numbers chart even higher.

Of those to play at least five Test matches since 2019, Williamson now boasts the best batting average of 65.50, edging Marnus Labuschagne (62.29) and teammate Daryl Mitchell (61.43). That’s even without a Test century between January 2021 and his double hundred in Karachi.

While the match numbers point to conditions favourable for batting, it was easy to forget that the match was a first Test appearance for Williamson and all of his teammates. The 32-year-old at Tauranga showed that he was right at home, and the century meant that he has now scored Test centuries in 11 different countries, when counting West Indies nations of Barbados and Jamaica separately.

And in terms of cashing in when on song, Williamson only compares to legends at the top of the list in the game’s history books.

In the 145-year history of Test cricket, just a dozen players have more double hundreds than Williamson’s five, and he’s one away from joining half a dozen of those above: Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Younis Khan, Javed Miandad, Virender Sehwag and Marvin Atapattu. Williamson has time on his side too, with at least 25 innings or more in hand on five of those players.

Of his five doubles, Williamson has amassed four of them in the last four years, and the right-hander reiterated his simple outlook on batting after his most recent effort.

“Any time you go out to bat, you want to prepare as well as you can, and commit to your plans,” Williamson said having also becoming the only Kiwi with over 1000 Test runs against Pakistan.

As ever though, a modest Williamson was quick to point out the work of his team-mates.

“It was nice to spend a lot of time with a number of other guys who made valuable contributions.

“Coming into today, we knew we wanted to bat longer to get a few more on the board. The contribution from Ish Sodhi with the bat was really, really important.”