It was a flighted Shoaib Bashir delivery thrown outside off on purpose. Bashir knew what he was doing. After the end of the day’s play, the 21-year-old spinner said he saw Kane Williamson gearing to get out of his crease. What would your thoughts, as a bowler, be if you had seen the opposition’s best batter leaving the crease defenseless? Hoodwink him to beat the edge and allow the keeper to do the rest of the job, right? Bashir thought the same but what he failed to account for was that the batter in question was Kane Williamson. He might just have come back from an injury layoff but his reflexes have not slowed down one bit. Before Ollie Pope could disturb the furniture behind Kane, his right foot was already inside the crease.
The start of his inning was painstakingly cautious. The kind that gets the fans to peek through the gaps in their fingers, with hands glued to their face as if it would help avert any curse (jokes on them, curses don’t work on Kane Williamson). And who is to fault them? Even the greatest players do not usually fire right away after sitting an entire series out. It’s only natural for players to take an inning or two to get back in their groove. That he took 19 balls to get off the mark did not do much to smash this notion. But he was having none of it. Comeback innings are for those who leave, Williamson was always here, or so it looked like when he reached his ninety.
It was not the smoothest of his innings. One of Brydon Carse’s deliveries struck him in the visor, the other right in the middle of the lid. England even tried to choke the run flow and let Kane Williamson’s frustration do the job for them. But the right-handed batter just stood there, too nice to even laugh at England’s desperate attempts to get him out.
He scored slowly. More slowly than he usually does in home conditions. By the time, he walked off the ground, he had consumed 197 balls for his 93 runs. But it was not tedious to watch. He clearly was not struggling. Runs were coming when he wanted them to. They were halted at his command. The wickets kept falling. His partners kept changing. But his serene way of keeping the scoreboard ticking remained the same. If Will Young deserved a place in the team because he fared brilliantly against India, Williamson was making sure that it was not his spot. But not intentionally. The sort of character he is, he would not deliberately try to make the team at someone else’s expense. He was just there to score some runs, just as he always has done. Make no mention of losing time to injury in front of Kane, for he does not listen to such trash talk. He does not let lay-offs escort him to the field. He picks things up from where he left them. This time deliberately.
