Kane Williamson was head boy at Tauranga Boys' College in 2008. Photo/file
When Kane Williamson started at Tauranga Boys' College in 2004 he was already marked down as a potential international batsman. His prodigious run scoring at primary and intermediate level made him the boy all the cricket coaches at the school wanted to see bat.
In 2002, aged 12, he led Bay of Plenty Coastlands to the ND under-14 title in Gisborne, scoring an unprecedented 420 runs in four innings. A year later he captained Otumoetai Intermediate's First XI to win their first national Milo Cup final and again scored more than 400 runs in the tournament.
We put him in that team to start with and he got 93 and the senior boys said "who's this kid?
So the slightly built, impeccably mannered 13-year-old had expectations on him as great as Bert Sutcliffe and Martin Crowe ever faced arriving at secondary school. And it took Williamson little time to show his abundant class. New boys start in the Third XI at Tauranga Boys' and so did Williamson under the watchful gaze of master in charge of cricket Rob Leslie and coaches Neil Howard, Grant Marshall and Roger McBrydie.
"Our Third XI played in the local schools First XI comp and they do to this day," said Howard. "We put him in that team to start with and he got 93 and the senior boys said "who's this kid?" He played in the First XI at the start of Year 10 when we won the Super 8 for the first time and he batted at number three in that team aged 14. In October of that year he plays for Bay of Plenty and gets 60 on his senior debut. He debuted for Northern Districts as a sixth former. A lot of people asked about that and I am of the opinion if you are good enough, you are old enough. He was so mature. That was the difference."
Williamson arrived at Tauranga Boys' with a watertight technique not much different from what you see today playing for the Black Caps. The challenge for the school was to let him progress at his own pace without pushing him too hard.
"We didn't try and change him. His father Brett and [Bay of Plenty Cricket coach] David Johnson did a fantastic job with him," said Howard. "They coached him at an age when he was impressionable. He obviously had a love for it and he kept finding the hunger to do more and more and more. As a school kid he is easily the best back-foot player that we have ever had the privilege of seeing. Most kids can't even remotely do it. His example showed the other guys there was a way it could be done and it was not about swinging from the hip. He always hit gaps."
Williamson was also a multi-talented sportsman of the highest order. He was a high achiever in soccer, rugby, volleyball and basketball. He was a point guard of rare skill and played in the senior A basketball team in Year 10, winning a colour (the school's highest sporting honour) in basketball that year.
In some respects Williamson was fortunate at Tauranga Boys' to have a role model and trail blazer through the grades ahead of him in Daniel Flynn. The former Black Cap and record holder of most first class centuries for Northern Districts was a precocious player himself at school.
Howard says he made Williamson's transition that little bit easier.
"Flynny scored 100 for the Bay against Northland as a 6th former which is a great effort and Flynny wasn't a big man either. So this idea of Kane going through the ranks, we had seen with Flynny that it could work and they were good enough."
Williamson quickly blossomed as a batsman and leader in his early teenage years. He scored runs at will against all attacks he faced and his hunger for making big scores was obvious. Whether it was a young seam bowler his own age bowling for King's College called Tim Southee or facing a rapid young quick from Cadets called Trent Boult or any number of snarly old veterans in club cricket trying to talk him out, nothing fazed him. He had the same approach, same pre-ball routine, same humble reaction to personal triumphs and that desire to get back in the nets after an innings whether he made a rare failure or 100.
Nothing's changed since then to today. Following his blazing 112 off 88 balls against Pakistan in Napier earlier this month Williamson went back to the nets to practice because he said he had not faced enough balls for his own mental preparation for the Cricket World Cup.
Two of his more remarkable club innings were 181 against Greerton in a one-day game and 133 not out against Te Puke aged 15. Howard remembers the Te Puke knock fondly.
"They got 170 and we got the total six wickets down against a good attack. So Kane was 133 not out and the rest of the team scored 37-6."
Rob Leslie has seen plenty of good cricketers come and go at Tauranga Boys' since he started teaching there in the late 1970s. Williamson is clearly the best of the lot but Leslie says he was also a natural leader who ended up as head boy in his final year.
"It is not just that innate cricket talent but the broader picture stuff. He was always a guy who would lead from the front and was never terribly demonstrative in stuff that he did," Leslie said. "He had clear ideas about what he wanted to do but it was never something he was pushing too much on others. He was strong academically in the class room. He was an archetypical all round good guy really.
"Since making the Black Caps he has been strong all along but the thing that is different now is just getting that bit more consistency in those performances. I really don't think I expected anything else than what we are seeing at the moment."
Working hard outside compulsory training sessions is a common trait among all sporting champions. Williamson's work ethic is hard to beat. He lived and breathed cricket at school and lifted standards around him.
Howard believes he is doing the same thing now with the Black Caps as he did as First XI captain.
"In Year 11 in 2006 he really started to blossom. There were eight guys who played for the Bay in that team and they all got better because of him and his work ethic. It was completely a one-off. The only other person I taught who worked like him was Tanerau Latimer. [Kane] may be the most naturally gifted player we have worked with here but it is his work ethic that makes the difference.
"He is almost at that stage in the New Zealand team like it was in the First XI. He has some guys around him who are good players but he is the linchpin and maybe his experience of having done a lot of that is helping.
"The whole school was the better for him being here. We challenge the boys to leave the school as a better place and he did that."
Kane Williamson
Age: 24
Runs scored: Tests - 3034 runs, average 45,96, 9 centuries, 15 fifties
ODI: 2509 runs, average 46,46, 6 centuries, 37 fifties
List A limited overs: 4535 runs, average 45,35, 10 centuries, 28 fifties
People aged 60-plus accounted for 55% of all house fire deaths over the past 5 years.