betvisa cricketWhy does everyone love Kane Williamson?

England needed nine runs from three balls to win the 2019 ODI World Cup final. Ben Stokes hit a Trent Boult delivery to the deep. Martin Guptill attacked the ball and with the stumps in his sights, he aimed. The return throw hit Stokes’ bat as he dived to make his ground for the second run, and the ball rebounded to the rope for an additional four overthrow runs.

Kane Williamson, the Zen master

There is an unspoken rule in cricket which says that once a throw rebounds off a batter or bat, no further runs are taken. Unfortunately, because there is no actual law that protects this, the umpires are duty-bound to award any runs that may be incurred. The umpires awarded Stokes and England four more runs in the form of overthrows. Those overthrows determined the result of the 2019 fi🦂nal. England would go on to win the World Cup on a boundary countback.

There was a universal feeling that New Zealand had been robbed of the title. In the commotion,ꦰ Williamson looked Zen. He smiled. He was disappointed by the result, but what mattered was that his team had not been outplayed. They lost on a technicality.

Williamson consoled his teammates and congratulated the winners. When former cricketers, pundits and fans who shared in New Zealand’s heartbreꦺak called for a review of the rules, Williamson brushed the idea aside. Smiling. Williamson’s smile went viral. Fans christened him Smileson because of it.

When asked, Williamson also brushed aside questions about the decision review system. In the first over of England’s innings, Trent Boult had Jason Roy trapped lbw, but the umpire felt the ball was missing leg stump. New Zealand’s referral was turned down on umpire’s call, despite the ball appearing to be crashing into leg stump on the tracker.

“You have small margins like that, you have other sort of human decisions that can go one way or another and that is just part and parcel of the sport,” Williamson said at the time. His reaction won him hearts and minds. He was lauded as the role model cricket had always yearned for.

A humble legend…

Williamson, who scored the most runs by a captain at the tournament, was awarded the Player of the Tournament award. In accepting it, Williamson spoke of his teammates’ role in helping him to perform at the level he did. This humility and modesty have been a feature of his de🐷alings with the press and fans. The consensus was that cricketers of all ages, at all levels, cou🦹ld learn a lot from Williamson’s conduct.

But, Williamson isn’t just Mr Person൩ality. He’s more than a lovely smile and good manners. Pundits and commentators have created batting masterclasses based on his technique and how late he plays the ball. Opposition fans are enthralled by his game, so much so theꦓy don’t mind him scoring against them.

… with skills to boot

In 2014, Martin Crowe crowned Williamson as one of the four leading cricketers o🔴f his generation, alongside Virat Kohli, Joe Root and Steve Smith. All lived up to Crowe’s prophecy, but, only Williamson came from a country outside of the Big Three. Not only that, but New Zealand is one of the smallest full-member nations, and he was the first real batting superstar to emerge from New Zealand.

Williamson has reached peaks no other New Zealand batter has reached. He has scored the most runs, most hundreds and third-most fifties 𒆙for New Zealand in Test cricket. He has also shone brightly in ODIs. Williamson is the fastest New Zealand batsman to reach 3,000 runs in ODI cricket and has two streaks of five or more successive fifty-plus scores in ODIs since 2014.

Unlike his Fab Four counterparts, Williamson celebrates milestones in the same understated manner that is now synonymous with his name. Where Joe Root would perform a mic drop with his bat or ℱVirat Kohli would express himself loudly, Williamson demurely salutes the fans and his teammates. And more often than not, Williamson’s milestones have come when New Zealand needed runs the most.

Williamson is the anchor that steadies the ship of New Zealand batt🐎ing. He has done it so often that🌄 ‘Steady the Ship’ became his moniker. Of course, steady the ship has a dual meaning for Williamson, it also refers to his calm and collected demeanour even in moments of crisis, his leadership skills and tactical acumen.

A hero for all

It makes sense that he is loved by his nation, as he might be the most Kiwi hero ev☂er. But he is incredibly popular outside the land of the long white cloud. Part of this is because, in a big 3 cricket world, Williamson is Switzerland. A near-neutral being who you can like i✤f you’re from a beach in Fremantle or live around the BTM layout in Bangalore.

Then, Willia🎀mson took that a step further with his work in the world’s biggest cricket leag🤡ue.

In 2018, IPL fans in Hyderabad were ready to erect a statue in his honour. Sunrisers Hyderabad had lost their captain, David Warner, to a Cricket Australia suspension over the sandpaper affair in South Afꦬrica. Williamson took over the captaincy and resuscitated Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Indian Premier League campaign with his bat and leadership.

He steadied that ship and led SRH to the finals. Some budding entrepreneur missed out by not selling Kane Williamson Steady the Ship caps outside SRH home games.

We live in a segmented fractious online world, Are you a Beyonce or Swift, Messi or Ranaldo, Embiid or Joker person? You must decide. But ꦰwhile all that happens, Kane Williamson is a hero to all for just being a normal person who plays in the backyard with his dog and occasionally drags his team beyond where anyone expects.

Kane Williamson is the people’s champion.