Domestic Cricket Daily: Plunket Shield Round Rua (Selection Wrapz)
Round two of the Plunket Shield has begun and after round one offered plenty of funk given it was our first sighting of the domestic cricket landscape, we are back in plenty of selection funk for a slightly different reason. There is the standard dose of ins/outs due to injury or selection decisions, however the Blackcaps impending departure looms in the background and this has result in some Blackcaps playing Plunket Shield and some moving into training mode.
Wellington Firebirds vs Otago Volts
Wellington Blackcaps
Nada
Otago Blackcaps
Nada
Selection Funk
While I could break down changes in batting line ups and so on, I want to make it clear that these will primarily focus on general team selection from round to round. Teams can fiddle with their line ups so much, between innings let alone between games, making it a bit crazy to try and keep up with it all. Any who, I say that because a couple teams, like Otago have tinkered with their combinations rather heavily, yet this stems from their personnel decisions.
Mark Craig and Christi Viljoen are out, replaced by Josh Tasman-Jones and Warren Barnes. Viljoen is playing as 12th man, while Craig isn't playing at all (I don't speculate on why, I just tell you that he's not there). Craig skippered the Volts last week and his absence opens the door for Jacob Duffy to captain Otago, which is a heck of a nod for his leadership credentials given that Brad Wilson and Hamish Rutherford would be fine candidates themselves.
Craig's spin duties now fall to lefty-leggy Michael Rippon and Otago opted for the more swift seamers of Barnes ahead of Viljoen; who went wicket-less vs Northern Districts last week.
The only change for Wellington is Logan van Beek being replaced by Ollie Newton. This is seamer for seamer, with little impact on the balance of the Firebirds team.
Canterbury Kings vs Northern Districts Knights
Canterbury Blackcaps
Tom Latham, Henry Nicholls, Matt Henry.
Northern Districts Blackcaps
Colin de Grandhomme, Ish Sodhi, Neil Wagner.
Selection Funk
Canterbury made a straight swap at the top of their batting order with Chad Bowes replaced by Jack Boyle. Bowes and Boyle will likely open the batting once Latham departs and apart from the obvious possibility of an injury to Boyle, it would low key make sense to give them both a run before Latham leaves. Bowes is 22-years-old and Boyle's 25yrs, with Bowes owning a far superior record than Boyle's First Class average of 16.71 through 8 games.
Spinner Theo van Woerkom has lost his place to Fraser Sheat, putting a fair amount of responsibility on the spinning fingers of skipper Cole McConchie. Canterbury obviously prepared for seaming conditions, with some home field knowledge and I'm still not a huge fan of Canterbury's seam attack, especially with Kyle Jamieson unavailable and someone like Ed Nuttall not in the mix right now.
The Knights do have an attacking spinner in Ish Sodhi, so it'll be interesting to see if Sodhi can have an impact with the ball as it'll go against the Canterbury ploy of playing a solid, but not top-tier spinner in McConchie. Kane Williamson, BJ Watling and Trent Boult are all out for ND, one would assume that is to stay in Tauranga and prepare themselves for tour; Sodhi, de Grandhomme and Wagner love it though.
Replacing the Blackcaps trio, are Bharat Popli, Peter Bocock and Zak Gibson. Popli replaces Williamson, Bocock takes the wicket-keeping duties from Watling with Tim Seifert on Aotearoa A tour and Gibson takes Boult's seaming spot.
Auckland Aces vs Central Districts Stags
Auckland Blackcaps
Jeet Raval.
Central Districts Blackcaps
Nada.
Selection Funk
Ross Taylor is out for CD, probably along the same lines as the ND trio of Blackcaps not playing and he's been replaced by Adam Milne. I won't go into detail about the Stags line up, although replacing Taylor with a bowler is made possible by the fact that Milne's a handy all-rounder at this level and Willem Ludick's showing his class with the willow. Doug Bracewell's also an all-rounder which simply means that CD have the batting depth already there, to be able to absorb the loss of Taylor.
There is also just the one change in Auckland's team with Raja Sandhu replacing Ben Lister in a mundane seamer for seamer change. I have Lister ranked ahead of Sandhu in Auckland's seam stocks and I've also got Jamie Brown ahead of Sandhu, so I suspect that Sandhu benefits from a few niggles to Lister and Brown.
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Peace and love 27.