After months of nervous rehab, will-he-won’t-he, soft training and two carefully curated warm-up games, Kane Williamson is match-fit and good to go. When he walks out to play against Bangladesh in Chennai, he will be playing in his fourth ODI World Cup. Only 20 players in the history of the game have played in more editions.
It’s been a swift and relatively quick recovery for Kane, who had ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament on his right knee on the opening night of IPL 2023, and had to undergo surgery as a result. But exactly five months later and in the closing stages of his rehab, he was named in the squad for the World Cup he was expected to miss. Clock forward another month and he’s ready to represent New Zealand in a World Cup game. In Kane’s own words, these last few months have been “quite a journey” for him.
“Initially, it was not really considered,” Williamson said of his World Cup selection. “And to be honest, it was probably a good thing just to get my head stuck into rehab each day and not sort of rush it. That was really my focus. I was fortunate I had a really, really good team around me back home and also fortunate not to have a lot of setbacks during that time, so there were lots of little steps forward which, I guess, accumulate to being here now really and getting close and realizing that if each week does keep progressing well, ticking off all those sort of milestones along the way, which there are many of them, then there might be a chance. And yeah, grateful that that was something that could be done and getting named in the squad was a really exciting moment.”
Once in India, Kane played the warm-up match against Pakistan as a batter-only and racked up a sublime fifty at over run-a-ball. He was spotted with some strappings on his right leg and looked to struggle between the wickets on a couple of occasions. In the next warm-up against South Africa, Kane made 37 off 51 before retiring hurt, but more importantly fielded for 25 overs for his first time back in the field since the injury.
While Kane missing the World Cup opener was announced a while back, it was not the actual injury which prevented him from playing the second game against Netherlands. According to head coach Gary Stead, Kane was still building “a little more trust” in his body at the time and needed a few more days to work on his fielding and running skills.
“My recovery has been quite a journey but largely a good one that’s had some really good progress,” Kane remembered. “The recovery or the rehab was this whole sort of journey really, with a series of really small steps and just trying to take small steps forward. It certainly started with strength and range in terms of the knee and then gradually trying to improve that and control a bit of the pain around it as the load increases. We could be here all day talking about it (smiles)… , but I’ll fast forward a little bit.
“Great to be here and then get involved in those warm-up games which were really, really enjoyable. During those and post that, there were a lot of return to play fitness parts which were perhaps a little bit more related to fielding, time on feet and looking to try and execute some of those skills. And so, yeah, I mean each week throughout the last period of time since I’ve been, I guess, rehabbing has been really important and really valuable.
“There were lots of quite clear steps along the way that you were trying to tick off different milestones in terms of returning to the next phases and those sorts of things. A lot of data around it, mainly from other sports that was relied on and different strength numbers and heights and jumping and just heaps and heaps of different bits.”
Kane was part of the optional afternoon training held one day before the game. Asked about how his fielding was progressing, Kane said he’s “largely feeling pretty good” but there could be “odd occasions when they (other players) might adjust a little bit” with regards to fielding positions.
