Kane Williamson details the moments which shaped his career and the growth of New Zealand’s cricket team
Sam Landsberger flew to New Zealand for an exclusive chat with Kiwi skipper Kane Williamson. The only issue? Their meeting at Williamson’s local cafe got off to a rocky start. Here’s why.
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A wry smile spreads across Kane Williamson’s face.
It’s similar to the understated grin that greets most of his textbook tons.
“Bit overdressed, bro?” Williamson laughs.
He’s right. The suit worn by this interviewer looks embarrassingly out of place on a sunny morning in Mount Maunganui.
The New Zealand captain arrives at his local Tay Street cafe on Thursday at 9.57am.
He is three minutes early for our meeting, although his iPhone says he is late.
The clock on Williamson’s phone runs 13 minutes fast – a ploy he says is “blown out” by crossing time zones so frequently.
The affluent suburb is a short drive across a windswept bridge from Tauranga, where Williamson was born.
It was there where parents Brett and Sandra “ran a taxi service” for their five children, the family obsessed by sport.
Kane and twin Logan overlapped on the basketball court while volleyball was popular for their three older sisters.
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The siblings were supported, rather than pushed.
The picturesque coastal town shares Byron Bay’s friendly and laid-back vibe, which flows through Williamson.
The cafe is just a few cricket pitches from his home and across the road waves kiss a pristine white-sand beach.
Jandals and boogie boards are the choice attire. Williamson, dressed in sandals, a plain Asics T-shirt and chino shorts, blends in seamlessly.
Locals recount how Williamson often wanders over to the Tay Street Beach Cafe, orders a skinny flat white and sits on the steps, “chewing the fat” with passers-by.
Fellow “Mounties” Trent Boult and Neil Wagner often do the same.
But this is Kane Williamson, the exquisite batsman who sits in the same echelon as two of the game’s superstars in Steve Smith and Virat Kohli.
Can you imagine Kohli rubbing shoulders with the Mumbai locals?
Yet in Mount Maunganui, Williamson is just another bushy-bearded, wannabe surfer.
“I do have a few surfboards, but my passion outweighs my ability by some way,” he tells the Sunday Herald Sun.
15-YEAR-OLD WILLIAMSON MEETS FAKE NEWS
WILLIAMSON and Dale Steyn are in that surf, wetsuits on, waiting for a wave.
They pose for a camera and Williamson makes the photo his profile picture on Instagram.
It is a rare personal insight.
One of the world’s most admired cricketers is also among the most private.
David Warner marks every century with an exuberant leap. Kohli is the box office showman.
But Williamson ducks the limelight as if it’s one of Steyn’s 150kmh thunderbolts.
“It’s just a personal choice,” he says in his first in-depth interview in several years.
An early brush with what Donald Trump would call “Fake News” helps explain why.
An outrageous blog, perhaps written by a fellow student claiming to be Kane, is picked up by a national newspaper when Williamson is just 15.
“It was talking about batting positions and taking someone’s spot (in the New Zealand team),” he says.
“Some journalist basically cut bits out of it and put it in an article, which was really bizarre.
“You’re looking up to all these guys and this thing comes out. I was 15, like what the hell?”
Williamson’s 803,000 Instagram followers are treated to photos of his dog, Sandy. But the other posts are cricket-related and the page’s bio states: “Not on Facebook or Twitter. Hakuna matata.”
Williamson is 23 when he deactivates Facebook. He never signs up to Twitter.
“You would scroll (on Facebook) and people would be eating nice breakfasts and at times there was an unhealthy element to it,” he says.
“Not that I felt like I was using it that way, but I sort of felt like you could engage in other things.
“Balance is important. I see a lot of young people that have grown up on a diet of social media and I think it’s a lack of balance in a lot of respects.”
WILLIAMSON THE FACE OF NICE GUY KIWIS
IN many ways Williamson is the template for Australian coach Justin Langer. When Langer took over, and Australian cricket was on its knees, he wanted to regain the public’s respect. In contrast, the squeaky-clean Black Caps boast an unrivalled reputation.
Williamson is the face of NZ cricket and this year’s World Cup final at Lord’s was his signature moment.
“What makes him really stand out is the quality of his character. Everyone would have seen how difficult that result was to deal with, yet he remained humble and gracious,” New Zealand sports minister Grant Robertson tells the Sunday Herald Sun.
The Black Caps ooze humility. They remain magnanimous after being told they have lost a World Cup final in which, really, they tie … twice.
Williamson – who reveals he didn’t know about the boundary countback rule until he was padded up in the super over – emerges from the painful day with his reputation enhanced.
THE MOMENT THAT CHANGED NZ CRICKET
FORMER New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming says the Kiwis’ spike in good spirit cricket traces back to a tragedy.
It is November 26, 2014 and Pakistan reaches 3-281 at stumps on day one in Sharjah.
Then, Phil Hughes’ life support is switched off. The Black Caps are shaken. They plead for the Test to be abandoned.
Instead, play is suspended for 24 hours, and the Kiwis spend that evening in then-captain Brendon McCullum’s hotel room drinking a few beers.
What follows is arguably New Zealand’s greatest performance.
Williamson’s 192 and McCullum’s 202 help morph a poor first day into a monstrous win.
“It was a freaky thing,” Williamson says.
“It was one of the best Test performances we’ve ever had and we can’t take any credit for it.
“We were hit with the perspective stick and it was surreal.
“No one appealed, no one bowled bouncers … it was bizarre.
“There was just a complete unreal lack of interest in wanting to play cricket at that point in time, because it didn’t seem important.”
In Fleming’s eyes it has a profound impact.
“There were some lessons learned around how to play the game, or put the icing on what they thought was the right way to play, and since then they haven’t wavered,” he says.
“There was a thought that you had to be aggressive to show how tough you were.
“But the Kiwis are playing tough cricket without using their behaviour or their mouths as a weapon, and I think that’s a lesson to all.”
‘WE’RE NOT TRYING TO BE NICE’
NINETY days later and New Zealand hosts Australia in the 2015 World Cup, prevailing in a preliminary game by one wicket after Williamson slams a six off Pat Cummins in Auckland.
Australian wicketkeeper Brad Haddin flies home rattled by the hosts’ warm reception.
“It was that uncomfortable. All they were was that nice to us for seven days,” Haddin says on radio after the tournament.
“I said, ‘I’m not playing cricket like this. If we get another crack at these guys in the final I’m letting everything out’.”
True to his word, an aggressive Haddin lets rip with send-offs and a wee bit of controversy as Australia thumps New Zealand in the final at the MCG.
The Black Caps remain impossible to dislike. There’s India, led by the polarising and in-your-face Kohli, and there’s England, who will forever be the Old Enemy.
But the Kiwis? Kia Ora. Williamson doesn’t get the fuss.
“We’re not trying to be nice, we’re just trying to commit to the things that are important to us,” he says.
“Everybody does things differently, and that’s fine, that’s great. If everyone was the same it would be a fairly boring old place.
“It’s not a tag that we’ve given ourselves. We don’t sit around and focus on that at all.
“We focus on the attitudes that are important to us, how we want to play our cricket and how we want to relate to the public as Kiwis.
“There’s not much more to it than that. It’s not trying to sell something.”
HAS WILLIAMSON EVER SLEDGED?
FOX Cricket can turn the stump microphones up as loud as it wants this series. You won’t hear Williamson’s men blowing their tops at the Australians.
“It is important as a team that – if people choose to do it (sledge), which is fine – that it doesn’t cross the line,” he says.
“Because it actually affects the team brand, it sort of reflects us. So if you’re making those decisions then that’s OK, as long as it’s in the realms of how we want to operate as a group.”
Williamson feels blessed to have been exposed to verbal banter as a young teenager, when grown men were happy to run their mouths as much as they ran between the wickets.
“Often the standard isn’t the biggest step up, but the maturity – or sometimes the lack of – playing against men means you have to learn quite quickly,” he says.
Has Williamson ever sledged?
“I don’t know. Who am I going to sledge? I sort of bowl a few slow off-spinners.”
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‘HE IS DAVID PLAYING LIKE GOLIATH’
THERE is no hoopla or hyperbole about Williamson when he’s at the crease.
He’s a craftsman without obvious flaws. The only things he cares about are his next run and his team’s position. He’s an old-fashioned cricketer in a whiz-bang age. He blocks the good balls and he belts the bad ones.
“He looks like he’s got a lot of time and he does because he plays the ball later than anyone else,” Williamson’s long-time Indian Premier League coach Tom Moody says.
“That’s one of his great assets as a cricketer and particularly Test cricketer.
“He manages to play the ball in a very unrushed manner right underneath his nose.”
It’s easy to imagine Williamson playing at the turn of the last century.
There’s no booming backlift or flourishing follow-through. He’s a man of economy and straight lines.
The late Martin Crowe wrote that Williamson’s “humility and lack of ego” results in bowlers undervaluing his wicket. He is David playing like Goliath.
Fleming says runs are the best currency to measure leadership, making Williamson richer than most. He needs 132 runs against Australia in Perth this week to overtake McCullum’s 6453 in Tests. Only current No. 4 Ross Taylor, 35, (7022) and Fleming (7172) are ahead of McCullum.
“From a New Zealand point of view, he’s our best and will be our best with unbelievable numbers by the time he’s finished, unless something curtails the journey he’s on now,” Fleming says.
MORE GENIUS OR RELUCTANT LEADER?
PLOT Williamson’s ascension and the graph looks linear.
Teammate Doug Bracewell has known Williamson since he was six, and remembers a kid who was “a year or two above everyone else” in every way.
In 2008 he was named head boy of Tauranga Boys’ College. The same year he captained New Zealand in the Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia, losing to Kohli’s India in the semi-final.
By 2015 McCullum labelled Williamson a “genius” as he passed the baton as the country’s leader.
McCullum was an aggressive opener with tattoos and an obsession with horse racing. Yet Fleming says Williamson almost comes across as a “reluctant leader”.
So, how did Williamson do it? By simply being himself.
“I tried to adopt some of the things Brendon did as well as I could, but at the same time tried to be authentic,” he says.
“Hopefully it’s something believable, rather than any copycat-type stuff.”
Some things are a non-negotiable, like a clean dressing room.
“In primary school you get taught to be a tidy Kiwi and pick up after yourself – that’s a given,” he says.
“In the professional sporting world there are a number of distractions that can take you away from some of those smaller things that are really important and keep you grounded.”
In 2018 Williamson replaced the suspended Warner as Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper.
“It was an easy transition,” Moody says.
“Kane’s as interested in having a conversation with an 18-year-old in our squad about their game and the way they’re approaching training and what they think about facing a certain bowler as he would speaking to David Warner or Shikhar Dhawan.
“It’s a genuine interest – not an interest because it’s a duty and a responsibility as the leader. It has to be from his upbringing.”
Bracewell says he’s the ultimate team man.
“A lot of guys sort of play and they get a bit worked up about personal milestones and statistics,” the allrounder says. “That’s the difference between Kane and a lot of other guys.”
PLAYING JUNIORS WITH KANE WILLIAMSON WAS …
They say there’s no ‘I’ in team. But at an under-14 tournament Kane Williamson hit that cliché for six.
Williamson – who smashed about 40 centuries before he finished school – was such a run machine that he was dropped all the way to No. 9 to allow teammates a hit.
“Kane scored three hundreds in a row in the first three days and had been retired every game,” Kiwi teammate and childhood friend Doug Bracewell said.
“We were like, ‘Sh-t, we need to give these other guys a go’ so the next game we batted him at No. 9 because no one else had had a bat all tournament.
“We lost a whole heap of wickets and then Kane came in at No. 9 and scored a hundred and won us the game.
“I remember that pretty clearly. It was quite funny because everyone was excited they were going to get a bat and then they got rolled. Kane had to come in and save the day.
“He was just one of those blokes who was good at everything he did.
“He excelled in most sports whether it was soccer, athletics, even rugby one year.
“He gave rugby a go and was named player of the tournament in his first year, he was just that kind of guy. It’s pretty special growing up with a guy like that.
“If he got out he ran himself out or something. He was one of those kids that he’d rock up and bang out 100s and you’d have to pull him off and retire him – and he’d be pretty pissed off.
“That was just Kane. He’d be the only kid that would be able to get a hundred in a 25 or 30-over game.”
‘IT’S A HORRIBLE THING, A HORRIBLE THING’
KANE Williamson was so disgusted that a New Zealand spectator racially vilified Jofra Archer that he offered two apologies to England’s speed demon.
Archer tweeted after Mount Maunganui’s inaugural Test last month that it was “a bit disturbing hearing racial insults while batting to help save my team”.
Williamson took the incident personally, sent Archer a text message and followed up with a face-to-face chat.
“It’s a horrible thing, a horrible thing,” Williamson said.
“Diversity in this country is encouraged and we’re proud of that.
“To hear of some sort of comment that goes completely against the grain of what we feel and believe – and to a visitor, well to anyone, but to visitors to come here and have that experience – you feel very bad, and embarrassed that it happened.”
SIX THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT KANE WILLIAMSON
1. His twin, Logan Williamson, arrived as a surprise just minutes after Kane was born. The boys were undiagnosed twins.
“Logan became an accountant. I did enrol in business management at university and that was the intention before cricket took over. We’re not identical. Similar heights, but that’s about it. We were never really hugely competitive.”
2. Nickname is “Nossie”.
“It started happening when I was 10. I usually go by ‘Kanos’, ‘Noss’ or ‘Nossie’.
3. As a toddler Williamson would practice by hitting a ball hanging in a pantyhose.
“Like a ball in a sock – yeah, I used to really enjoy that. Then it was a golf ball with a stump and with a broken golf shaft. I sound like a lunatic.”
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4. He received England great Graham Thorpe’s old bat as a hand-me-down.
“I was about 11 or 12 and one of the local player’s dad’s gave me this bat. I got it all tidied up and it was an absolute gun, I couldn’t believe it. It was a beauty – nice, real nice.”
5. Bats right-handed, writes left-handed
“Yeah … I don’t know. When I started writing it was obviously a natural thing. I do, yep. Why did you ask me that question?”
6. Visits poverty-stricken parts of Bangladesh, but only when the TV cameras aren’t watching.
“It’s hard when you’re in camp, but when you get the opportunity it’s certainly a real eye-opener to go to different parts of the world. People are in all different situations and lead different lives.”