Kane Williamson: Black Caps Great reflects on 2019 World Cup final, new book, decision to retire

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You're listening to the Weekend Sport Podcast with Jason Pine from Newstalk ZB.

Jason Pine (0:07)

One of our greatest ever cricketers.

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Four more, this should be his hundred. Eighth New Zealander to get a hundred on debut.

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He's there, Kane Williamson.

Brilliant stuff. Absolutely wonderful hundred this has been.

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The classiest hundred you'll ever see.

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Take a Brisbane bow, Kane Williamson.

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Magnificent stroke from Kane Williamson, and he has put on a batting masterclass.

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Down the left side and a hundred for Kane Williamson. Sixteenth Test Match Century.

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He's headed into the onside out towards Midwicket. He's going to beat the Fieldsman, he's gone to the boundary for the seventeenth Test Hundred for Kane Williamson.

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Now he's got down the gap, he's got another hundred all right. He's not only churning out runs Kane Williamson, he's churning out Test Centuries.

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Test Meds Century number 32 for Kane Williamson. What a remarkable cricketer this man is.

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Williamson goes down the pitch, strikes it beautifully and goes to yes another hundred.

Jason Pine (1:11)

Just some of the many, many highlights of Kane Williamson's cricketing career. His book is out now, it's called The Bare Margins. Kane Williamson's in studio with us. Welcome in Kane, congratulations on the book, it's a cracker, really enjoyed reading it.

It was one of your reservations about writing a book that you'd have to do a whole bunch of interviews to talk about it and to talk about yourself.

Kane Williamson (1:34)

Oh, to be honest, I didn't think a lot about it. In fact, you're just getting your head around the idea of writing a book, which I wasn't too sure on at the start. In fact, I wasn't going to, and then got a little convinced and then it had a purpose, you know? So it was a really enjoyable process, especially going through the back end of my career and then eventually retiring. And so it kind of gave me a great opportunity to reflect.

But then try and get down on paper, document the evolution of the team a little bit in the last 16 years through my lens and then also how I tried to treat the game and approach what I did. And I enjoyed it and then obviously now we're here now and doing all this. But it's good. It's been fun.

Jason Pine (2:22)

There are a lot of cricket books and a lot of them are, we played this team and I got these runs and then he got some wickets and we won the game or whatever it is. It's not that at all. There is a bit of that in there, obviously, through the context of what you've just talked about. How keen were you for it not just to be a cricket info site?

Kane Williamson (2:37)

Yeah, that's right. That's sort of what didn't interest me too much. And so then to kind of have that purpose and try and do it, you know, respectfully and honestly and get it out in a book. Yeah, it's felt good, actually.

And in partnership with Dylan Cleaver, who's done a brilliant job getting down, I guess, my thoughts, you know, on paper, which is a real art. And so, yeah, it was quite a process, as any book is, but back and forth and getting through it all. But yeah, I think I'm pretty pleased with how it's come out.

Jason Pine (3:15)

You worked out pretty early on that cricket was what you did, not who you are. How did you come to that pretty mature realisation at such a young age, do you think?

Kane Williamson (3:27)

Yeah, well, probably through just a bit of struggle and then having sort of played the game from such a young age and just loving it, enjoying it. And then, you know, getting to that top level, which is the place you want it to be, and then realising there was a lot more to that and a lot more things to deal with. And so I speak about it with real depth in there, just trying to reshape the path that I was on and, you know, my ideas of success, they kind of needed to change.

And realising that if I was doing it the way that I currently was, that even if you were to kind of achieve a bunch of these statistical things you thought, you know, would mean success, you know, probably wouldn't be worth it. And so it was a real shake up and a pivot in my mentality because there needed to be a little bit more to the picture.