Hamilton: Star New Zealand batter Kane Williamson added another feather to his cap with a scintillating century in the third Test of the bilateral series against England on Monday. He became the first batter to score five consecutive hundreds at a single venue by smashing a ton at the Seddon Park in Hamilton. He surpassed a total of seven batters - Mahela Jayawardene (Colombo), Don Bradman (Melbourne), Michael Clarke (Adelaide), Denis Compton (Trent Bridge), Martin Crowe (Wellington), Sunil Gavaskar (Mumbai), Jacques Kallis (Durban), Misbah ul Haq (Abu Dhabi) and Garfield Sobers (Kingston). In his last five Test matches, Williamson has scores of 200 (Bangladesh, 2019), 4, 104 (England, 2019), 251 (West Indies (2020), 43, 133* (South Africa, 2024). He amassed 44 runs in the first innings of the fixture.
Also, Kane Williamson scored his 20th century at home and is placed in joint-fourth position in the list of batters with the most Test hundreds at home. Jayawardene, Kallis and Ricky Ponting are joint leaders with 23 centuries each in their home country while Kumar Sangakkara and Sachin Tendulkar have racked up 22 hundreds at home.
New Zealand are in the driving seat in the third Test against England as they have set a target of 658 runs for England and the visitors were reduced to 18/2 by the end of the third day of the fixture. Kane Williamson played a knock of 156 runs while Daryl Mitchell amassed 60 runs during his stay at the crease to help New Zealand post a mammoth target for the opposition.
Earlier, New Zealand posted a total of 347 while batting first courtesy half-centuries from Tom Latham and Mitchell Santner. England then were bundled out on 143 as the trio of Matt Henry, Will R'ourke and Mitchell Santner dished out a clinical display.
