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After a bit of an injury scare, Kane Williamson has been cleared to take part in the inaugural World Test Championship final. Against the best Black Caps batsman, India will have their task cut out keeping Kane Williamson in check.
While all eyes will be on how Kane Williamson leads his side, and he would also have a point to prove with the bat as well. He hasn’t enjoyed the best of times in England, and his Test record against India isn’t the best either.
With Kane Williamson being the most prized wicket, India could plot his dismissal in multiple ways. Team India could look at three possible ways to get rid of Kane Williamson early in the World Test Championship Final.
#1 Surprise Kane Williamson with a few short balls
Kane Williamson is hardly a mug with the short ball. Across his Test career, the New Zealand batsman has been hugely successful in dealing with bouncers, averaging 60.29 against short-pitched bowling.
However, he has started to struggle more against short-pitched bowling in recent times. Kane Williamson averages 90 short balls per dismissal, but that number has dropped to 60 in the past few years. Compared that to his average balls per dismissal for other lengths (231 for full-length deliveries and 187 for good-length deliveries), one can see there is an argument for surprising Kane Williamson with a short ball every now and then.
But Indian bowlers will have to be very careful while using this tactic against the New Zealand captain. Kane Williamson has the lowest false shot percentage out of any batsman to have scored 1500+ runs since 2018, so a short-bowl barrage could only work if India manage to surprise Kane Williamson.
The best time to use this tactic would be at the start of his innings. With Kane Williamson low on confidence and dealing with a niggly elbow, peppering him with a few bouncers early on might just do the trick for India to get their man.
#2 Get Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah to nip the ball back in
"Swinging it away from him, setting him up, pulling him across the crease, and then using the crease with the nip backer to get him lbw looks like a solid option.”
That is what Ollie Robinson had to say when asked about his plans for dismissing Kane Williamson ahead of the England-New Zealand series.
As luck would have it, Robinson got his tactics spot on during the first Test. The debutant got one to nip back in, and a smart DRS call resulted in Kane Williamson being adjudged LBW.
Kane Williamson was caught off guard by another that nipped back in the first innings of that game. James Anderson got one to come back in ever so slightly from the fourth-stump channel, and Kane Williamson could only nervously play it onto his stumps.
Williamson’s two recent dismissals are a bit of an anomaly, though. He doesn’t really have a weakness against balls coming into him. His average against in-swingers over the past two and a half years is well above 100.
But the dismissals gave an insight into how a perfectly set-up inswinger can bring Williamson's downfall. In both instances, Kane Williamson shuffled slightly to the right as if to cover for his real weakness, i.e. the outswinging delivery. While Kane Williamson averages 100+ for inswinging and non-swinging deliveries, the same drops down to just 21.77 for balls moving away from him.
A meticulously thought-out plan, beginning with a few outswingers, could plant a seed of doubt in Kane Williamson’s mind. If the deliveries moving away don’t get him, the England series showed how the occasional inswinging ball could lead to Williamson's downfall.
Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami might be best suited to perform this job. Their skiddy bowling action, combined with their ability to swing the ball at pace could prove to be fatal for Williamson.
#3 Ravindra Jadeja could build up pressure from one end
Test cricket is as much about building pressure as it is about taking wickets. And there is hardly any better in the world than Ravindra Jadeja when it comes to doing a containing job with the red ball.
India are likely to go in with two spinners in the final, so Ravindra Jadeja would be best equipped to keep Kane Williamson in check. Williamson scores at just 2.9 runs per over against slow left-arm bowling, which is his slowest scoring rate against all bowling types.
Ravindra Jadeja could hold one end up and stop the flow of runs, building pressure on Kane Williamson. With other attacking options at India’s disposal, it could pave the way for a release shot, which could bring about the crucial wicket of Kane Williamson. Williamson's record against Ravichandran Ashwin isn't too good either, with the off-spinner dismissing the batsman five times in eight innings.
India’s pacers know the importance of keeping things tight against the star batsman. Speaking to the media earlier this month, Mohammed Siraj gave an insight into his plan for Kane Williamson.
“I will try to bowl in a particular spot tirelessly. I will focus on bowling dots against Kane Williamson, the best batsman in the New Zealand line-up, to create pressure on him. It will provoke him to go for shots, and there will be a high chance of getting him out," Siraj said.
*All stats have been taken from the CricViz database, with the cut-off being the start of the New Zealand vs England series, which concluded last week.
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