Even when his team is at the receiving end, Williamson is seen having a quiet word with his bowlers on change in strategies.
New Zealand captain across all formats, Kane Williamson, comes across as a nice person, sometimes too soft to be skipper of an international team. Rarely has he shown emotions on the field like his contemporaries Virat Kohli of India, Steve Smith of Australia or England's Joe Root do.
Even when his team is at the receiving end, Williamson is seen having a quiet word with his bowlers on change in strategies.
But, the 27-year-old from Tauranga in North Island is a different person with the bat in his hand. He is spoken in the same breath as other premier batsmen in the world, all of whom are international captains – Kohli, Smith and Joe Root. While his contemporaries often make the headlines, Williamson quietly goes about his business. He jointly holds the New Zealand record for most Test hundreds – 17 –with the late Martin Crowe.
Ask him if he needs to show more aggression on the field as a captain as he comes across as a nice person, and smiles, saying "thanks for the kind thoughts".
Speaking about his style of captaincy, Williamson said: "For me, it is about the people around you rather than yourself. How to get the guys ticking as best as they can be, how can we try and play our best cricket, look at our performances, and then the captaincy and my opinion are shaped around that rather than perhaps being soft or any other nice words.
"Everyone has got a different style, and within our team is a number of leaders that contribute to our leadership and are certainly considered in terms of how we want to approach our cricket. Of late, we have been putting some good performances on the board and we know coming here, it is a very tough challenge and we have to be aware of this."
Williamson will be up against Kohli and the two will play for more than just the bragging rights. The series win is at stake. Williamson is confident of his team's preparation. "After a bit of break from international cricket, it was nice to get back together and start acclimatising as best as we can with the climate here in terms of humidity. The guys got through some good work, the number of batters spent some time in the middle (in warm-up matches), bowlers got through some good overs as well. We will put our (best) foot forward and play our best cricket."
He is aware of India's impeccable record at home. "They are a very hard team to beat. We know that, at home in particular, they'll be the strongest team in the world. There are no illusions that we need to come out and play our best cricket. We saw in the last series here (in 2016) that we were two-all going into the decider, which was a fairly good effort, although we knew that perhaps we hadn't played our best performance and it was shame in that last game (in Visakhapatnam). It will be nice to come out in this series and do a little bit better," he said.
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