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Image Source : GETTY Kane Williamson, Virat Kohli and Steve Smith
New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson completed the 12 months on a excessive on Thursday by clinching the highest place within the ICC Men’s Test Rankings, dethroning an out-of-form Steve Smith who had registered scores of 0 and eight within the two innings at MCG.
Williamson had performed an excellent knock of 129 within the first Test in opposition to Pakistan, which the Kiwi aspect received by a hefty margin of 101 runs. Following his stellar batting present on the Bay Oval, Williamson gained 13 score factors to pip Smith within the record.
This 12 months, Smith was sitting on the prime for 313 days whereas his Indian counterpart, Virat Kohli had secured the No.1 spot for 51 days earlier than Williamson climbed to the highest. After displacing Smith and Kohli, Williamson stated that he was attempting to contribute for his aspect as a lot as he can.
“It’s about trying to do as much as you can for the team. If you can contribute as much as you can and it can be reflected on the rankings, that’s really cool,” Williamson stated in a video posted on ICC’s official Twitter deal with.
“Those two (Virat Kohli and Steve Smith) players are the best. For me, sneak up someone is very surprising and humbling. Those are the two players year and year out in all formats moving the game forward, very fortunate to play against these guys,” he additional stated.
Williamson was additionally completely satisfied after New Zealand earned a hard-fought victory in opposition to the resilient Pakistan aspect. Eyeing a top-two end, New Zealand are at present positioned third with 360 absolute factors and 0.667 proportion factors (66.7%). They’ll now tackle Pakistan within the second Test at Hagley Oval, Christchurch from January 3.
“It was a great game to be involved in. We seem to have many tight finishes against Pakistan. The last three have gone to the last 25 minutes of the last day. Both teams fought incredibly hard. I think we had moments although the resistance put up by Pakistan on the last day was incredibly strong. It is really exciting to cross the line and hunt for an opportunity for the World Test Championship,” stated Williamson over the win.
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