CAPE TOWN – Cape Town 2013. Many Kiwis, including the protagonist Brendon McCullum, view this Test as the seminal moment in the history of the Black Caps’ rise to World Test Championship glory in Southampton earlier this week.
I though beg to differ. I actually believe the seeds were sown a year earlier in Wellington. Newlands may have been “Ground Zero”, but it was a typically blustery fifth and final day at the Basin Reserve that would have given McCullum the gumption to tear up the script.
New Zealand were always a team that were greater than the sum of its parts with the tenacity to fight above their weight class.
But at the Basin they realised for the first time they had a genuine superstar in the making sitting right alongside them in the dressingroom. It was not a feeling anyone wearing the Black Cap had known since the halycon days of Sir Richard Hadlee and the late Martin Crowe.
The suspicions had been growing ever since the scrawny teenager from Tauranga had taken his first tentative steps in the Plunkett Shield, winning matches and titles for his native Northern Districts not only with a bucketful of runs but also some tidy off-spinners.
It was rubber-stamped when a 20-year-old Kane Williamson announced himself to the international cricket public by becoming the youngest New Zealander to score a century on Test debut against India in Ahmedabad.
But for all the promise of his maiden performance on the subcontinent, Williamson still headed into the series against the Proteas two years later with a long white cloud hanging over his head in terms of whether he would be able to absorb the intensity that Mssrs Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander and Morne Morkel would generate in the middle. It was to be a surgical examination of his technique in addition to the sheer brutality of the exercise.
Two-hundred and twenty-eight balls and 75.5 overs – 44.4 of them with No’s 7 and 8 – later and Williamson had passed his litmus test. Not even a blow to the crown jewels from Steyn - he later signed the cracked protector - could fluster the baby-faced Williamson as he finished unbeaten on 102 to save the Test for New Zealand.
McCullum had not yet completed “the coup that never was” with Ross Taylor still steering the Kiwi ship, but ironically he was the man doing the talking at the post-match conference.
“I’m not quite sure Kane has realised what he has done just yet,” McCullum told us down in the basement of the Basin, “but in terms of New Zealand cricket history it will go down as one of the gutsier innings and one of the more fighting efforts on the last day against this sort of attack.”
Personally, I believe this was part of the catalyst that enabled McCullum to take New Zealand cricket by the scruff of the neck and haul it kicking and screaming in a different direction. He owed it to the likes of Williamson whose supreme individual talent could not go wasted in a team that were at that stage content with being among the also-rans of world cricket.
McCullum wanted his team to have an identity. Qualities that would define their character. “Humble”, “hard-working”, “innovative”, and “gracious” were the words that rose to prominence. Williamson was the prototype of the future and the physical embodiment of the space McCullum wanted New Zealand cricket to move into.
Strangely enough Williamson had actually found himself with the captain’s armband for a solitary T20I and a few ODI’s on a tour of the West Indies in that same 2012 year after Taylor had injured his shoulder. It was another record-breaking achievement with Williamson replacing Stephen Fleming as the youngest skipper in New Zealand’s history.
But that was not his time to lead on a long-term basis. Plenty of heavy lifting still needed to be done to shape up the Black Caps and McCullum’s hulking tattooed arms were the right ones to carry the weight.
When the baton was eventually passed at the end of the home summer of 2016, “Baz” had successfully transformed the Black Caps into a world-class high-performing unit.
By then Williamson was the most obvious choice as McCullum’s successor for he was now firmly established among the “Fab Four” of premier batsmen in the world. This elite status automatically earned him the respect of his teammates, while his demeanour was admired globally too.
McCullum’s departure and Taylor’s subsequent eye-surgery meant it was not a seamless transition though. Williamson was almost at alone at sea in the batting department resulting in early series losses to India and South Africa.
But such was Williamson’s almost religious belief in the systems that were cultivated under McCullum and coach Mike Hesson that he remained steadfast to the principles that had been successful in the previous era.
He just needed to adapt the approach a little bit. While McCullum was unflinching aggressive in everything he undertook, Williamson knew he needed to show greater patience, particularly with the new generation that consisted of Henry Nicholls among others, to fit in alongside himself and the world-class pace bowling unit that had been formulated.
It is here where Williamson showed that he was the right man to help New Zealand advance to the next level. His more nuanced and cerebral leadership style allowed New Zealand greater adaptability and pushed them closer to their Everest.
Every path to world championship status is littered with pot-holes along the way though. The change of coaching regimes from Hesson to Gary Stead in 2018 posed potential pitfalls, but none were bigger than when Australia once again showed their neighbours from “across the ditch” that they remained the big boys Down Under in 2019.
The Aussies inflicted a 3-0 whitewash on Williamson’s Black Caps and the skipper came in for severe criticism for his tactical application from none other than McCullum during New Zealand’s first Boxing Day Test appearance since 1987 in the second Test.
The Australian series was the culmination of an emotionally-draining year with the gut-wrenching World Cup final Super Over “defeat” to England at Lord’s still fresh in the memory.
Williamson had navigated through all of that with the gracefulness of dame at a debutante ball, but even he was now showing signs of mental fatigue.
If the criticism had been from any other source than his predecessor and close friend, then perhaps even someone as grounded as Williamson would have taken offence and it could have been the start of a downward spiral.
But after a one-on-one chat with McCullum prior to the start of the third day where Williamson was reminded to “try and play for that young boy who fell in love with the game way back in the early days” that endearing smile returned.
It was a poignant moment that allowed Williamson to breathe again and the Black Caps to get up from the canvas and fight once more.
The advent of fatherhood at the start of 2020 was further semblance that Williamson had found the “cricket-life balance” that his former Yorkshire coach and Australian fast bowler Jason Gillespie had predicted would be his biggest challenge when he was appointed captain across all three formats back in 2016.
The jig-saw puzzle was all coming together perfectly for the fountain of runs had continued streaming throughout. The punch off the back foot through the covers remains the trademark, while every over-pitched delivery is met with a gentle lean forward to complete an exquisite drive.
Few batsmen in the world have risen to very summit of the ICC rankings with such a simple method.
Such has been New Zealand’s near misses in major finals that Williamson would still be heralded as an all-time legend even if he had not been able to win any silverware throughout his career.
But Mother Cricket, though, finds a way of rewarding the nice guys and there is none nicer than Williamson and his Black Caps.
So, when the moment finally arrived for the bearded Williamson to raise the golden ICC Test mace – now dubbed “Mason” – above his head to celebrate the culmination of an extraordinary journey, it had further significance for it showed that even during these dark times of Covid-19 which has robbed everyone of even their most simple pleasures that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow does eventually arrive for those who persevere.
IOL Sport