Playing against South Africa at Lahore, Kane Williamson hit his first ODI hundred since the 2019 World Cup.
The Pakistan Tri-Nation Series game between South Africa and New Zealand ended several streaks. Outside ICC-organised tournaments, it was the first ODI in the subcontinent between two non-Asian sides since 2003-04. It was also the first day-only ODI in Lahore since the Pakistan-Sri Lanka game of 1999-00.
At an individual level, Matthew Breetzke (150 in 148 balls) became the first to reach 150 on ODI debut. With Wiaan Mulder also hitting a 60-ball 64, South Africa amassed 304-6.
Stepping out at 50-1 in the 10th over, Williamson took on the South African attack, dominating a 187-run stand – a record for New Zealand against South Africa – with Devon Conway (97 in 107), the other opener. By then, Williamson had already raced to his hundred, off only 72 balls. He took only 28 balls to bring up his second fifty.
The hundred was the 14th of Williamson’s ODI career. For New Zealand, only Ross Taylor (21), Martin Guptill (18), and Nathan Astle (16) have more ODI hundreds, while only Taylor (72) has more fifty-plus scores than Williamson’s 60.
This was also his first hundred since the 2019 World Cup, when he hit 148 against the West Indies at Manchester. Three days before that, he had got 106 not out against South Africa at Birmingham. It ended a 22-match, 2,063-day barren stretch without a hundred.
Over this period, Williamson had hit eight fifties in 21 innings, and had never been dismissed below 14 (though he was unbeaten without scoring against India at Christchurch in 2022-23). His last single-digit dismissal was back in January 2019.
Williamson began the day 132 runs away from 7,000 ODI runs. He reached 133 with the winning boundary, becoming the fifth New Zealand batter to the milestone, after Taylor (8,607), Stephen Fleming (8,007), Guptill (7,346), and Astle (7,090). He did so in his 159th innings, the second fastest in ODI history, ahead of Virat Kohli and behind South Africa's Hashim Amla.
New Zealand have already beaten Pakistan, with a win here qualifying them for the final at Karachi on February 14. There, they will face the winner of the South Africa-Pakistan clash on February 12.
