Kane and Kohli: Flying their Flags

Kane Williamson and Virat Kohli will stride to the centre of Southampton’s Ageas Bowl in their team blazers and caps today – weather permitting – each carrying the tag ‘batting great’ as comfortably as their respective slabs of willow.

Their mind-boggling stats mirror each other’s (Williamson career average 53.60; Kohli 52.37), as do their impressive test captaincy win rates (Williamson 58 per cent; Kohli 60), at the helm of sides ranked one and two in the world. They even became fathers of daughters within a month of each other in December-January, each missing big matches to focus on more important deliveries.

Both are central figures and their side’s key men in this inaugural World Test Championship decider (9.30pm start NZT), but the similarities don’t extend much further, on or off the pitch.

Their fame and fortune reflects cricket’s relative status and economies in India and New Zealand.

Kolhi’s Indian Premier League ($3.25 million) and Indian national team ($1.34m) contracts nudge him towards $5 million annually, without endorsements which skyrocket that figure. Williamson’s IPL deal is less than one-fifth of Kohli’s ($573,000), and combined with his NZ Cricket earnings of around $450,000 edge him up towards seven figures.

Kolhi and wife Anushka Sharma post photos from their lavish 35th floor Mumbai apartment (he has 127 million Instagram followers); Williamson and wife Sarah Raheem are intensely private. New Zealand’s skipper can jump on a surfboard or wander up the road from their Mount Maunganui home for a coffee and attract little attention, rarely posting on Insta to his 1.7 million followers.

So too their personalities; Kohli a snarling, combative on-field presence and Williamson humble and understated, contrasting but equally successful leadership styles.

Williamson and wife Sarah Raheem are intensely private . . . rarely posting on Insta to his 1.7 million followers.

Kolhi and wife Anushka Sharma post photos from their lavish 35th floor Mumbai apartment (he has 127 million Instagram followers).

With bat in hand, both inspire wonderment in cricket fans for different reasons, with Australian Steve Smith ever-present in the Big Three debate. Former England captain and cricket writer for The Times, Michael Atherton, grappled with the comparison in January after Williamson batted 29 hours across three home tests.

‘‘Kohli, for sure, is a magnetic presence on the cricket field and demands our attention: when a short video of him batting in the nets before India’s previous tour of Australia in 2018-19 was released, it provoked a whole column, so crisp was his ball-striking, so feline his movements. Smith’s technique, too, is fascinating, as it is so unusual and against the grain of orthodoxy,’’ Atherton wrote.

‘‘Williamson’s game is not so eye-catching. You can’t really imagine emulating the way Kohli or Smith play, but you could imagine trying to copy Williamson [in your dreams]. Yet he has the purest technique on show; plays the ball later than anyone else; makes better decisions more often and, at the moment, is scoring more runs, more consistently.’’

On the eve of this test, Smith overtook Williamson to No 1 on the world rankings with Kohli moving up a spot to No4. Former Black Caps batting coach Craig McMillan rated Williamson No 1 in January, telling Stuff: ‘‘I have Kane with his nose in front because day in, day out he’s having to do it in bowler friendly conditions [in New Zealand] and very rarely do you get a good, flat batting deck that perhaps some of those other teams get in their home countries.’’

The other intriguing thread to the Kohli v Kane narrative is that both arrived in Southampton under a cloud.

Williamson’s left elbow injury –

essentially an overuse issue after that 29-hour batting marathon against West Indies and Pakistan including two double-centuries – flared again and saw him miss the Edgbaston victory over England after scoring 13 and 1 at Lord’s. It was heavily strapped at training yesterday. In England Williamson averages just 26, 10 runs fewer than Kohli.

Kohli, too, hasn’t caused a flurry among the stats gurus of late. Taking in the February 2020 series in New Zealand, when the Black Caps won 2-0 on tricky surfaces, he hasn’t scored a test century in his last 12 innings and averaged just 24 in that time against New Zealand, Australia and England.

Neither skipper has led their side to a world title. On the big stage, a trademark big innings from either talisman could be the difference in what shapes as a tightly fought contest.