Cricket: Black Caps captain Kane Williamson hoping for new IPL deal ahead of India series

Kane Williamson and Hardik Pandya with the T20 series trophy. Photo / photosport.nz

Kane Williamson will be occupying a couple of atypical positions when the Black Caps’ T20 series against India begins tomorrow.

The skipper is still coming in at No 3 but will be attempting to prove he has a bright future in T20 cricket while batting his way to the front of the shop window for prospective IPL suitors.

Neither situation will be overly familiar for Williamson. The 32-year-old has long been an automatic selection in all formats and until this week had a settled home in the Indian Premier League, spending eight seasons with Sunrisers Hyderabad since joining in 2015.

But with his form faltering in the last 12 months and with Sunrisers opting to release their captain, Williamson will head into this series with a couple of points to prove.

India represent an ideal opposition for that task. Fellow beaten semifinalists at the T20 World Cup, India have rested several players but still boast frontline bowlers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Arshdeep Singh.

A strong series – set to start in Wellington tomorrow but with rain on the radar – would be particularly timely ahead of next month’s IPL auction, given Williamson wants to continue playing in the competition and playing all three formats.

“That’s the way it goes,” he said of his release. “I had a really enjoyable time at SRH and have a lot of fond memories.

“It’s an amazing place to play, a really special tournament. I’ve always enjoyed my time there.”

Last season can’t have been quite so enjoyable. After being retained by Sunrisers for $2.8 million – the highest retention price for an overseas player in competition history – Williamson was by some measures the least productive batsman in the IPL.

He scored 216 runs at a strikerate of 93.50, the lowest mark for any batsman who faced at least 100 balls. That performance, as Sunrisers finished eighth, was a marked contrast to Williamson’s first campaign as captain, when in 2018 he led his side to a second-place finish and led the IPL with 735 runs while striking at 142.44.

The slump came as Williamson was rehabilitating a troublesome elbow injury and began a year in which his slower scoring in the shortest format was frequently the cause of external angst.

But Williamson has recently shown a couple of glimpses of vintage form – in the tri-series final against Pakistan and the must-win World Cup match against Ireland – and will “wait and see” on the auction as he plots a future in all formats.

“I’ll look forward to seeing what happens – you don’t have a lot of control over a lot of these things,” he said. “So for me, it’s just focusing on my cricket and enjoying it here with New Zealand.

“There’s a lot of competitions around the world. Certainly, the IPL is an amazing comp to be part of. You see players play for different teams all the time – there’s a lot of options and a lot of cricket. I love playing all formats.”

That passion is clear in Williamson’s involvement in the Indian series, which will be followed by three ODIs. But with counterpart Virat Kohli being rested, Williamson may do likewise in the odd match over the next fortnight.

“It’s becoming quite a natural part of the game – not everybody can do everything,” he said. “We’ve had a few chats about managing workload and making sure guys are staying nice and fresh.”