AUCKLAND: As Kane Williamson’s career has grown in stature over the past 12 months, he has established himself not just as a consistent batsman but a cool head and a man for a crisis.

He had to be all of those things on Saturday as he struggled — alone — to hold together a decaying New Zealand innings and lead his team to victory.

Williamson came to the wicket as first drop when New Zealand was in a relatively commanding position of 40-1.

He watched Brendon McCullum hit 50 before New Zealand’s innings fell into a steady and worrying decline from 79-4 to 131-5 and then 146-9.

That brought to the wicket the last man, Trent Boult.

Williamson decided that not much could be asked of Boult with the bat.

“I was looking to hit a boundary, ideally a six,” Williamson said.

“After what Starc did at the other end, for the new batsman coming in it was obviously quite tough so trying to get a boundary away was the plan.

“To be honest, I thought (the final ball) was going to be a bit shorter but when it was up there it was nice to get the ball in that area and connect and hit it for six. It was great to win and that’s what Trent and I were trying to do.

“Obviously Australia made it tough for us but we fought all the way through and every little partnership counted.”

No-one was more relieved than Boult to see the ball cross the boundary.

“I was pretty wound up, that’s for sure,” Boult said. “I got out there and I was going about a million miles an hour but Kane quickly slowed it down for me, simplified it and said if I got through the next two balls then we could move forward from there. It was great to get there.”

Boult said New Zealand would take confidence from a win over Australia, the world’s top-ranked side and tournament favorite. “I guess a lot of confidence is gathered from that,” he said.

“When you come up against the best in the world you quickly take a few lessons out of it.

“We sat in our hotel a couple of days ago, scouting and going through their batsmen and we knew how much depth they had so to come out and put the game plans we thought of into place is obviously very satisfying.”

Published in Dawn March 1st , 2015

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