Williamson is only comparable to the all-time greats

Moving past Brendon McCullum to keep New Zealand’s Test double century record straight, Williamson was at his brilliant best in Karachi, propelling his side to a strong first-innings lead and doing much of the lifting in the lower order.

Six wickets after Pakistan’s 438, Williamson was masterful with the tail, highlighted by a partnership of 154 with No. 8 Ish Sodhi, the second-highest partnership of the innings. He hid No.11 Ajaz Patel superbly to reach the milestone and brought up his 200 with one off the spin of Abrar Ahmed.

New skipper Tim Southee called on his former leader for New Zealand’s declaration after reaching the mark, marking Williamson’s ten-hour stay at the crease. which contained 21 fours and a six, would remain unblemished.

When Southee was unexpectedly handed the Test captaincy two weeks ago, people in the cricketing world wondered what Williamson could do without the burden of the role, and the 32-year-old showed us a man who is arguably even better with the bat.

It was evident that Williamson had a clear mind in his Karachi knock: confident in his footwork and batting, but also eagle-eyed, having overturned two lbw decisions on 13 and 116.

If this is a taste of what’s to come from Williamson in red-ball form without a captain, we could well see his batting numbers even higher.

Among those who have played at least five Test matches since 2019, Williamson now has the best batting average of 65.50, ahead of Marnus Labuschagne (62.29) and teammate Daryl Mitchell (61.43). That’s even without a Test hundred between January 2021 and his double hundred in Karachi.

While the match numbers suggest batting-friendly conditions, it was easy to forget that the match was the first Test appearance for Williamson and all his teammates. The 32-year-old from Tauranga proved he is at home, and the century meant he has now scored Test centuries in 11 different countries, counting West Indies Barbados and Jamaica separately.

And when it comes to the game, Williamson only compares to the legends that top the list in the game’s history books.

In Test cricket’s 145-year history, only a dozen players have more double hundreds than Williamson’s five, and he is one short of half a dozen: Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Younis Khan, Javed Miandad, Virender Sehwag and Marvin Atapattu. Williamson also has time on his side, with five players having at least 25 innings.

Of his five doubles, Williamson has collected four of them in the last four years and the right-hander reiterated his simple approach to batting after his latest effort.

“Whenever you go out to bat, you want to prepare as well as you can and commit to your plans,” said Williamson, who also became the only Kiwi with more than 1,000 Test runs against Pakistan.

As always, the unassuming Williamson was quick to point out the work of his teammates.

“It was nice to spend a lot of time with several other guys who made valuable contributions.

“On this day we knew we wanted to bat longer to get a few more on the board. Ish Sodhi’s contribution with the bat was really, really important.”