The beautiful desperation of Kane Williamson

Kane Williamson isn't the sort of person who kicks out in frustration, normally, but Saturday wasn't a normal day. There were times during his otherwise silky-smooth 95 off 79 when he didn't quite hit the ball exactly as intended, and where these moments would normally provoke nothing beyond a poker-faced glove readjustment, they caused him on this day to aim kicks - polite, self-effacing kicks but kicks nonetheless - at nothing in particular.

On the surface, there was little cause for this uncharacteristic display of emotion. He was batting beautifully and keeping New Zealand in sight of a 400-ish total, and there seemed to be nothing in Pakistan's bowling or in the Chinnaswamy Stadium's pitch and outfield to prevent them from getting there. In 28 attempts in ODI history, only once had a team successfully chased down a 400-plus target.

And yet, here Williamson was, kicking out unambiguously.

Other bits of Williamson's innings bore the stamp of desperation too. There was, first of all, the very fact of his presence at the crease. He had carried a knee injury into this World Cup and missed New Zealand's first two games as he made his way to full fitness. He had played their third game and scored a serenely vital 78 before retiring hurt with a fractured thumb. This had caused him to miss four more games.

On the eve of this game it hadn't been clear Williamson would play. He was one of four players under an injury cloud. "A decision on their availability will be left until game-day and likely confirmed at the toss." NZC had said in a statement.

Through the course of Williamson's innings, it was evident he was not 100% healed; more than once he blew on his hand after playing a shot.

But it was clear why New Zealand wanted him out there even if it meant batting through pain. Just the second ball he faced was proof enough; a blameless, only-just-back-of-a-length delivery from Haris Rauf, offering no real width, jabbed crisply off the back foot with an open face to bisect backward point and deep third.

It was as if he had never been away.

But it soon emerged that the Williamson batting at the Chinnaswamy was a slightly different Williamson to the serene, self-contained Williamson you've watched hundreds of times. This was, if such a creature can be willed into existence, a kicking, screaming Williamson.

Early in his innings, for instance, Williamson aimed a booming drive at a not-quite drivable length from Rauf, and sent a thick edge flying wide of slip.

Then there were forays down the track, twice in the space of three overs, to hit offspinners inside-out over the covers while leaving all three stumps exposed. This is a shot he's always played well, but he doesn't always bring it out when he's in his 30s, when he's batting in the 23rd and 25th overs of an ODI innings.

Right after the second inside-out chip, he brought out an even more emphatic statement of intent, getting down on one knee to Iftikhar Ahmed and using every millimetre of his reach to slog-sweep him over wide mid-on. There was a certain degree of length manipulation at work here; the ball landed a fair way short of a slog-sweeping arc.

After getting himself set with 30 off his first 35 balls, Williamson was all action, all urgency, perhaps even all desperation, scoring 65 off his next 44 balls.

The back-foot punch off Rauf that took him from 52 to 56 was perhaps the clearest illustration of this desperation. The back-foot punch is a Williamson trademark, always played with a high left elbow, often with both feet off the ground, and usually described as "pristine" by cricket writers and commentators.

There was nothing pristine about this back-foot punch, and it was all the more glorious for it. It was an offcutter from Rauf, and it gripped just enough to force Williamson to manufacture power and placement. For this, he had to abandon the full bat face and the high left elbow, and instead force the ball away, into the gap between cover and mid-off, with a whip of his bottom hand and a half-swivel of his hip.

It was a shot of beautiful desperation.

It's hardly sound sportswriting to guess at a player's mentality from their body language or how they have approached a certain task on the field, but the circumstances were clear enough in this case - or would become clear enough, soon enough - to enable this sort of conjecture.

New Zealand had lost their last three games of this World Cup, and with their hopes of a semi-final slot just beginning to fray were facing their most direct competitor for that slot. They were in the midst of an injury crisis, and would soon be defending a total on a belter of a pitch with a far-from-first-choice bowling attack.

Where Pakistan had picked four quicks and no frontline spinner, New Zealand had picked a second specialist spinner and no genuine third seamer. Either the two teams had read the conditions very differently, or one of them had been forced into a compromise. New Zealand's two choices for third seamer were Lockie Ferguson, who was recovering from an achilles injury, and Kyle Jamieson, who had only just flown to India as Matt Henry's replacement.

At his post-match press conference, Williamson said the pitch had played "better than it appeared", suggesting that New Zealand had initially expected more help for the spinners.

"Yeah, I mean we obviously been challenged with injuries and things but we did see that surface and thought that spin would be perhaps most threatening," he said. "But everybody went for plenty of runs and I think when that's the case in these sorts of games, it's more about moments or an over or two that can change the game quite quickly. And that was really difficult to come by. Both teams batted beautifully well and ultimately Pakistan just got their noses in front."

As New Zealand began their defence of 401, and as Fakhar Zaman began taking chunks out of Pakistan's target with an innings of breathtaking skill and audacity, it became clear that every bowler was going to take a pasting. It fell to Ish Sodhi, the legspinner picked for his first game of the tournament, to take the biggest pasting. Pakistan, fuelled by cricketing skill, a weakened opposition, the grace of the weather gods, and perhaps even Qudrat ka Nizam, ran away to victory by a thumping DLS margin.

None of this may have seemed likely when New Zealand were batting. But if you looked closely enough, the threat of it was always present in the sight of their kicking, if not quite screaming, captain.