Kane Williamson is an important player in line-up, he can't be batting at strike rate of 100: Wasim Jaffer

The New Zealand and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) captain Kane Williamson has been a consistent run-scorer across all the formats of the game. In IPL 2022, he crossed the landmark of 2000 runs in the tournament. However, his performances have not been quite impressive, and has failed to convert starts into big ones. In the latest interaction, the former Indian cricketers Wasim Jaffer and Deep Dasgupta shared their views on the form of Williamson.

Jaffer thinks the SRH captain is ideal for the role of an opener, with Rahul Tripathi already doing good at the number three position. He reckoned that Williamson has been conservative with his approach and wants to take the responsibility of batting until the 15th over. The former Indian opener further said that despite the inexperienced batting line-up of SRH after Nicholas Pooran, the captain can’t be batting at a strike rate of 100. In nine matches, Kane Willamson has scored 195 runs at a strike rate of 99.49.

“He has batted for a while but hasn’t batted aggressively, which has been the problem.  I don’t see anybody else as an opener, as Tripathi has done well at number three. He is just batting conservatively and wants to take the responsibility to take the game till the 15th over by himself. After Nicholas Pooran, there is an inexperienced batting line-up, which puts a little bit of pressure on the top-order to score the bulk of runs. He is such an important player in the line-up and can’t be batting at a strike rate of 100,” said Jaffer on Sky247.net presents ‘Not Just Cricket’ Show on CricTracker.

Kane Williamson can afford to play more freely: Deep Dasgupta 

Dasgupta thinks that the elbow injury might be affecting his performance and it is unsure if the Kiwi player has recovered fully from it or not. It is known to all that Williamson has missed out on most Tests for New Zealand in the World Test Championship 2021/23 cycle. Dasgupta further added that the 31-year-old batter can afford to play freely when the batters like Aiden Markram and Nicholas Pooran are contributing well to the team.

“It seems a little different for Kane this year, because of his elbow injury, and has missed a lot of cricket for the last year and a half. Not sure if he has completely recovered from the injury or not. I could have understood Williamson playing the way in the first two games, where other batters weren’t contributing enough. But, now he can afford to play more freely when others are doing well,” said Dasgupta.