New Zealand bulldozed their way and stamped their authority on the third and final Test against England in Hamilton as the Kiwis are closing in on a huge victory. England are left needing 640 runs to win in the fourth innings with eight wickets left, seven if captain Ben Stokes doesn’t come out to bat after having hurt his left hamstring on Monday, December 16. The star of the show with the bat for New Zealand was Kane Williamson unsurprisingly, as he notched up his 33rd Test century.
Williamson equalled Alastair Cook and Steve Smith on the all-time list of Test centurions with 33 hundreds. The former New Zealand captain also became the ninth batter in Test cricket to have 20 home centuries to his name in the longest format of the game. Williamson took his own sweet time as the likes of Will Young, Rachin Ravindra and Daryl Mitchell played around him and he held one end up.
This was also Williamson’s 11th century in the World Test Championship (WTC) history, which is the joint-second highest as he equalled Marnus Labuschagne’s feat in 30 fewer innings and also got past the likes of Harry Brook and Yashasvi Jaiswal with a fifth hundred in the current cycle.
Most centuries in WTC 2023-25 cycle
7 – Joe Root (England) – in 39 innings
5 – Kamindu Mendis (Sri Lanka) – 16 innings
5 – Kane Williamson (New Zealand) – 22 innings
4 – Harry Brook (England) – 28 innings
4 – Yashasvi Jaiswal (India) – 31 innings
Most centuries in World Test Championship (WTC) history
Joe Root (England) – 18 (in 116 innings)
Kane Williamson (New Zealand) – 11 (51 innings)
Marnus Labuschagne (Australia) – 11 (86 innings)
Steve Smith (Australia) – 10 (82* innings)
Rohit Sharma (India) – 9 (66 innings)
Williamson scored 156 while Mitchell, Young, Rachin Ravindra and Mitchell Santner all gave important contributions as New Zealand scored 453 runs in their second innings and set a massive target of 658 runs for England to chase. It increasingly looks like that the Black Caps will be able to avoid a whitewash and end their current WTC cycle on a high.
