One of the greatest cricketers to come out of New Zealand is Kane Williamson. He is regarded as being on par with outstanding players like Stephen Fleming and Martin Crowe. This Kiwi captain has already batted his way to the top and has a long career ahead of him. In the classic version of the game, he has scored the most runs with a thousand. It was not surprising that he was interested in cricket, given he was born into a household where sports were a tradition. Given that his father played club and under-17 cricket in his youth, he undoubtedly inherited some of his interest in the game from his parents. In addition to being a right-handed hitter, he occasionally bowls off-spin. Although his rigid, play-by-book approach was initially viewed as a weakness, he quickly established himself as the team’s rock. Williamson has not only smashed records in international cricket, but he has also set some of his own, despite a rocky start. He is the New Zealand player with the youngest century to date. It is thought by many that he has a good chance of retiring with the most runs of any New Zealand batsman in history if he stays on course and plays consistently. Following the retirement of former New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum from international cricket, he was an obvious choice for the captain’s role because of his composed but keen approach to the field.
Early Life & Childhood
In Tauranga, in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand, on August 8, 1990, Sandra and Brett Williamson welcomed Kane into the world. Along with his twin brother Logan, he was raised with three older sisters, Anna, Sophie, and Kylie.
Sports participation was seen as a family tradition in the Williamson household. Cricket was Brett Williamson’s club sport. Sandra, Kane’s mother, was a standout basketball player. Every sister of Kane participated in volleyball. Brett changed hats and became the twins’ cricket coach after they entered the picture.
Williamson went to “Otumoetai Intermediate School” after first attending “Pillans Point Primary School.” In the end, he received his diploma from “Tauranga Boys’ College.” From the beginning of his life, it seemed as though the world had worked in concert to place him at the right location at the right moment. “Pillans Point” wasn’t your typical school. With nine internal teams, it was the only school in the area offering cricket instruction.
Williamson was already participating in representative cricket by the time he turned 14 years old. At the age of sixteen, he began playing first-class cricket for the senior sides of the Northern District and Bay of Plenty. In 2007–2008, he won the State Championship. Before Williamson had graduated from college, he had amassed an incredible forty centuries.
In 2008, he captained the under-19 New Zealand cricket team, which finished second to India in the Malaysian semifinals of the ‘World Cup.’
Career of Kane Williamson
He entered the international scene at last in August 2010, although his one-day international (ODI) debut in the tri-series competition against India in Sri Lanka was a miserable one, as he was out for a ninth-ball “duck.” Williamson had little solace in the following innings as he was removed for a second-ball “duck” against Sri Lanka. Things appeared dire for this youngster, 20, after two straight “ducks.”
His admirers were not left feeling let down for very long. Before the year’s close, in October 2010, Williamson bounced back from his earlier disappointments by hitting his first century in an ODI series against Bangladesh, which was otherwise a complete disaster for the New Zealand team. In the same year, that century guaranteed him a spot in the Test squad. Within a month, he got his maiden Test century against India, right in front of his hero, Sachin Tendulkar. He became the eighth player from New Zealand to achieve a century in their Test debut as he amassed 131 runs in the match.
Two impressive performances by a faltering New Zealand squad in 2012 were largely down to two outstanding Test innings from this youthful attacker. In Colombo, Williamson struck for a huge 135 runs to give his team the victory over the Sri Lankan team. In addition, he showed true grit by defeating South African batsman Dale Steyn and scoring an undefeated 102 runs while behind a daunting 389 runs.
Williamson achieved unprecedented success in 2014 in all game formats. He amassed two hundreds in a three-match Test series against the West Indies, helping New Zealand secure a rare victory away from home. With 413 runs throughout the series, he was named player of the series. He and BJ Watling shared a record-breaking partnership of 365 runs in a Test match against Sri Lanka that same year.
He became the second person in the history of the game (after Pakistan’s Yasir Hameed) to score a record five straight fifty-score runs in an ODI series against India in 2014. Additionally, he made history by becoming the fourth player from New Zealand to score 50 or more points in ODIs five times in a row.
He continued breaking records one after another, just when everyone else felt he could not get any better. He set a record in 2015 by scoring 2,633 runs across all formats, making history as the first “Blackcap” batsman to reach 2,000 runs in a single year. It placed him on par with cricket greats like Kumar Sangakakara and Ricky Ponting. That year, he and Steven Smith shared the record with five Test hundreds. He opened the year in Wellington with an undefeated 242. At “Lord’s,” as well as in Brisbane, Perth, and Hamilton, he scored hundreds.
Even though the Kiwi team did not perform very well at the 2015 World Cup, Williamson’s 45 wins without a loss and his thrilling “sixer” against Australia at Eden Park brought attention to the budding talent.
His youthful shoulders bore the brunt of captaincy in 2016, but his cool-headedness and ability to handle stress appear less difficult than it was. He kept breaking records in the game’s extended format. He became the youngest batsman to achieve a century against every Test-playing country that year after he hit a century against Zimbabwe in the fewest amount of innings.
“Sunrisers Hyderabad” signed Williamson in preparation for the 2015 Indian Premier League (IPL). But in 2016, he participated in his maiden “IPL” match. After being kept on by the team for a few more years, he was named “Sunrisers Hyderabad’s” captain in 2018. The squad was guided by him to the championship round, where the “Chennai Super Kings” defeated them.
In 2011, he began playing cricket for Gloucestershire, an English county. After joining “Yorkshire” in 2013, he left to win the “County Championship” in 2014.
He is keeping his captain’s hat from the 2019 “World Cup” for the Kiwis.
Honors & Accomplishments
During the 2015 Bay of Plenty Sports Awards, he was presented with the esteemed “Bayleys Real Estate Sportsman of the Year” trophy.
In 2015, Kane rose to the top of the “International Cricket Council’s” (ICC) world Test rankings.
Williamson made history in 2018 by being the first New Zealand player to reach over 900 rating points in the “ICC” Test rankings.
The “Orange Cup” was given to him for being the top run scorer of the 2018 Indian Premier League.
He is now the second-best batsman in the world in 2019, trailing only Indian captain Virat Kohli.
Individual and Family Lives
Williamson and Sarah Raheem, a nurse who was born in Britain, are in a committed relationship. Sarah is a ‘University of Bristol’ graduate.
Facts of Kane Williamson
Logan, Kane Williamson’s twin brother, was born a few minutes before of him.
Our Kiwi skipper is a big surfer. His enjoyment of being alone himself and navigating waves leads him to frequent the ocean.
Williamson gave thousands of dollars in match money from the Pakistani ODI series to the families of the 132 children slain in the Peshawar terror incident in 2014.
Despite being a right-handed player, he writes left-handed.
Net worth of Kane Williamson
The estimated net worth of Kane Williamson is about $10 million.