ICC World Cup 2019: Patience and planning - Kane Williamson’s chase masterclass

The jury is still out on whether he should have walked after Tahir claimed he had nicked the ball but Quinton de Kock didn’t look too sure from behind the stumps.

The 27th over has just ended. Lungi Ngidi has finished a tight second spell of three overs, conceding nine runs with a maiden. Only 15 runs have come off in the last six overs, pushing the required run rate to over six for the first time in the chase. Imran Tahir is ripping it. Ngidi is mixing it up. South Africa are dictating terms. ((ICC World Cup 2019: Full Coverage))

Kane Williamson celebrates after going past the three-figure mark. (Action Images via Reuters)

New Zealand still need 133 runs with six wickets in hand but Kane Williamson is unfazed, as if batting in another era where time spent at crease was considered more valuable than runs scored. The scratchy James Neesham takes his chances against Tahir, slogging him across the line for a boundary to keep the asking rate down. Williamson however, just tabs Tahir to long-on for a single to reach his fifty. He doesn’t even take off the helmet.

The scoreboard is just a set of numbers: It tells you Williamson raised his hundred in 137 balls, sloth-slow compared to this era of wham-bam cricket. It also shows New Zealand to have won by four wickets with three balls to spare, not a big deal when we are bombarded with last-ball finishes in the IPL with alarming frequency.

What it doesn’t highlight is how for 30 overs Williamson fought a lone battle against a South Africa desperate for a win. It also doesn’t reveal that for 72 deliveries—from the 20th to the 31st over—New Zealand had struck only two boundaries. From 32 off 39, Williamson had trudged to 57 off 85; Williamson ensured that the winning line was crossed even if it didn’t look pretty. He inside edged the ball past his leg stump, edged one just wide of the wicketkeeper, took a few hits on his body and often failed to thread the field despite his impeccable timing.

The jury is still out on whether he should have walked after Tahir claimed he had nicked the ball but Quinton de Kock didn’t look too sure from behind the stumps. That could have been reassuring for any batsman. Williamson was almost caught off a no-ball before he could have been run out. This was no poetry in motion, but plain batting for a cause. It was a classic.

Williamson waited, he planned. He walked off to the side when the bowler won a round, allowing himself time to gather his thoughts and take fresh guard. He was content stretching it to the end, taking singles and block one end to send the collective heartbeat of the South Africans through the roof. They knew he was the one.

That Williamson is perfectly capable of flourish was displayed in the way he reached his century, getting down to his knee and carving a slower delivery over midwicket for a six. But Williamson’s strength lied in the ability to curb his instincts and play the innings that a difficult chase on a devious pitch required. Only Williamson knows how challenging it was to bat out those overs when Ngidi, Tahir and Chris Morris were bowling in ‘Test match areas’.

“If you can try and build a partnership and then look to then change the momentum of the game because you’ve got some sort of platform, then that gives you the opportunity to perhaps try and get a few more runs,” said Williamson later. “Obviously, if you’re bowling with those straight lines, it’s difficult to hit across the ball when it is standing up in the wicket. So you’re trying to play straight, hoping that perhaps you pierce a few. At the same time, you’re just trying to take the game to a stage to not let it bother you despite the fact that you always want a few more. That never changes.”

Colin de Grandhomme’s power and clean hitting ability helped, but New Zealand still needed the patience of Williamson to guide them. There was frustration. There was anger. Williamson swung the bat a couple of times after missing the ball. But his success was at not letting South Africa dismiss him. Mere survival kept South Africa under pressure.

“Sometimes you knew that you were going to have tough periods out there,” he said. “So going into the innings, it was important that you tried to give yourself a little bit of a break because no one played the free flow innings except for, perhaps, De Grandhomme, which was obviously very nice to watch. In the back of your mind, you’re just weighing out where you want to be a little bit later on.”

When Williamson did his weighing and realized the chase couldn’t be wrapped up earlier, he let the match take its own course till it was 14 runs from 12 balls. De Grandhomme was out first ball of the next over but Williamson was ready for his final flourish, the kind reserved for the IPL. First though he dabbed at a ball, hoping to get a single, but it finally fetched Williamson his first boundary in 38 deliveries. Eight required from the next six. Time for the home run. A six and Williamson finally took his helmet off. With two more required off the next four, he knew he was nearly home.