The man himself might not admit it, but Kane Williamson becoming the first New Zealander to the fabled mark of 10,000 test runs would mean plenty to the game in Aotearoa, Black Caps batting coach Luke Ronchi says.
At age 35 and having now played 107 tests in the black cap, Williamson sits 610 runs away from five figures.
Having notched almost every New Zealand test batting record, getting to 10,000 runs would be something else entirely for Williamson.
Among all the major cricketing nations, depending on how you define Zimbabwe, only New Zealand and Bangladesh lack a player who has passed that milestone.
From Martin Crowe (5444 runs) to Stephen Fleming (7172) and even Ross Taylor (7683), no Kiwi has got as close as Williamson currently is at 9390.
What’s more, cricket’s changing face – with franchise Twenty20 becoming the vehicle it will ride into the future – there is a very real chance that whatever total Williamson finishes on will never be overtaken.
It’s a great irony, though, that there is perhaps no player less focused on individual milestones than Williamson himself.
From the moment he glanced Zaheer Khan to fine leg to raise a century on test debut in 2010, every major individual achievement in Williamson’s career has been met with a sheepish raise of his bat.
But now, with more yesterdays than tomorrows in his career, Williamson has started to take a step back.
Earlier this year, he opted to not play in the Black Caps’ two-test series away in Zimbabwe. Although Williamson had previously skipped white-ball series of relatively low importance, that marked the first time he’d turned down the chance to don the whites for New Zealand.
At the start of November, he made the decision to retire from Twenty20 Internationals and stated his focus was on test cricket and the 2027 World Cup.
But while the master batsman makes little of such milestones, Ronchi underlines that getting to 10,000 runs would be significant.
“Sometimes, from my point of view, you get a little bit selfish at the thought of having a New Zealand player with 10,000 test runs,” Ronchi said.
“It would be quite a cool stat to get to. You look at what it might mean to cricket in general.
“But to him, it’s not always a thing. He’s not looking at numbers. It depends on the individual and who you look at.
“Knowing Kane and how he wants to go about his cricket, that’ll be in his mind anyway. But he knows his style and the way he wants to go about it.
“If he gets there, he gets there. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t.”
Williamson’s first chance to get closer to 10,000 will come next week, when the third and final test against the West Indies begins at his Tauranga home ground.
And even if Williamson is yet to truly dominate a scorecard in the series, there have been signs that something special may be around the corner.
In Christchurch, he made 52 as the highest score of New Zealand’s first innings, then looked in imperious touch to reach 37 off 46 balls at the Basin Reserve, before being undone by an unplayable delivery from Anderson Phillip that swung late, beat his defence and hit off-stump.
Then, chasing only 56 for victory in Wellington, Williamson scored an unbeaten 16 off just 12 balls – all in boundaries – to seal New Zealand’s win.
As both a coach and former teammate, Ronchi has seen plenty of Williamson specials, and feels another isn’t far away.
“He’s someone who doesn’t think in that style when he’s batting,” said Ronchi. “It’s [about] each ball, being present and understanding what’s needed in a situation.
“First innings, he got a heck of a ball from Anderson Phillip. You might look at it and say ‘maybe you could have played it this way’.
“But the reality is he comes back the next day, warms up the same way, goes about his business the same way.
“The runs will flow when they’re going to flow. He’s Kane Williamson, you can see it within him, and you know what he’s trying to do, what he’s trying to give to the team and the understanding of that.
“He’s flying along.”
While the West Indies series is New Zealand’s last for 2025, next year will feature away tours to England, Ireland and Australia, either side of two tests against India at home.
Alex Powell is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.