Domestic Cricket Daily: Ford Trophy Round Five Notes
From another Kiwi-African making his mark in domestic cricket, to a couple blokes who have been in and out of the Blackcaps mixer and a young slugger warming up; round five in the Ford Trophy had plenty to suss out. I'm hitting the hard and fast format today, so here are a bunch of notes from the glorious land of domestic cricket.
Starting with Dean Foxcroft, Central Districts Stags #4 batsman who blazed 120* off 105 in the Stags lost to Northern Districts Knights. For many, Foxcroft's knock will be overshadowed by the nek level numbers offered by Joe Carter and Brett Hampton's whack-a-thon, however Foxcroft holds the intrigue for me.
As the Stags are currently ravaged by Blackcaps and Aotearoa A absences, Foxcroft is enjoying a cheeky stint in Ford Trophy alongside his former South Africa Under 19 comrade Willem Ludick. They both played in the 2016 Under 19 World Cup and played against NZ U19, their final World Cup game (11th/12th playoff) in which Foxcroft hit 117; the Aotearoa team have Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Josh Clarkson, Finn Allen, Christian Leopard, Felix Murray and Zak Gibson who are all either in UAE or played Ford Trophy round five.
Like most of the other Kiwi-Africans on the domestic cricket, Foxcroft looks bloody classy. He has effortless power and played a few sweep shots against Anton Devcich, which for a 20-year-old is a lovely sign. With 8 fours and 4 sixes, Foxcroft gave the Stags a sniff of chasing down their target of 314 and with support from Josh Clarkson's 43 off 7, the two youngsters gave the chase a decent crack.
Clarkson's heating up as well, in round four he hit 64 off 50 and followed it up with another typical Clarkson knock. He only has 128 runs from 4inns @ 32avg and his strike-rate is simmering at 103.22, the key thing here is that Clarkson's found some runs and with some confidence he could rise through the levels as the competition rolls on.
Joe Carter smacked 102 off 77 balls and Brett Hampton 95 off 66 for the Knights, including the over off Ludick that featured a few no-balls and plenty of sixes. Carter is usually a top order batsman, but has played in the middle order in his first domestic sightings this summer after not being used in the Plunket Shield.
Carter appears to have fallen behind the likes of Henry Cooper and Nick Kelly in the Knights batting ranks, although if he can show that this century wasn't just a flash in the pan, he could settle into the line up.
While Clarkson's a notable whacker to keep tabs on, this season it's all about Hampton. This was Hampton's second 50+ score in 4inns and he's got 221 runs @ 125.56, which has him slightly behind Jimmy Neesham in terms of runs/strike-rate. Hampton's got the most sixes though, with 11 and next best is Neesham on 9 sixes.
Neesham continues to let the runs flow, hitting 67 off 46 for Wellington Firebirds in their win over Auckland Aces. This was Neesham's third 50+ score in 5inns and he's also got a 29* in there, meaning that he's in a nice groove. If we want to include the two Plunket Shield games, Neesham has four 50+ scores in 7inns.
Not required to bowl, Neesham couldn't flex his all-round swag. What Neesham is doing though, is scoring runs and he's doing it his way by nudging sixes, as well as going inside-out to get straight deliveries through the off-side:
Wellington also enjoyed the services of Devon Conway, who hit 94 off 122 balls. This was Conway's third 50+ score in 5inns and he is flourishing in the specialist role of #3 where he can craft his innings; the four best run-scorers (Conway, Sean Solia, Hamish Ruterford, Andrew Fletcher) all have strike-rates less that 90 and all bat in the top-three.
Standard business from Conway and with the inclusion of Foxcroft for the Stags, our Kiwi-African numbers are soaring through the roof. The likes of Will O'Donnell for Auckland and Andrew Fletcher for Wellington were born in Africa, while Foxcroft, Conway, Ludick etc are more recent revivals and that is to say that we have varying degrees of Kiwi-African, which I boil down to whether they were born in Africa or not.
This round in Ford Trophy we had...
Willem Ludick, Dean Foxcroft, Andrew Fletcher, Malcolm Nofal, Devon Conway, Peter Younghusband, Craig Cachopa, Will O'Donnell, Graeme Beghin, Danru Ferns, Shawn Hicks, Michael Rippon, Christi Viljoen and Chad Bowes.
On top of that, we have the Blackcaps...
BJ Watling, Colin de Grandhomme, Colin Munro, Neil Wagner, Glenn Phillips.
Hamish Rutherford went bonkers for Otago Volts, scoring the bulk of their 309 runs which Auckland Aces couldn't chase down. Rutherford hit 154 off 141 balls and while we are seeing many 50+ scores, this was Rutherford's second 100+ knock with Rutherford and Fletcher being the only batsmen to pass 100 twice.
Remember that this comes after Rutherford hit a century in the Plunket Shield (4inns), so in 9inns across both competitions, Rutherford has three centuries.
Last round I highlight the work of Otago's young seam attack and they were back in action, taking 5w between them to restrict Canterbury to 247 - chur opener Jack Boyle for his 71 off 98. Jacob Duffy's wicket was a lower order wicket, but still a wicket, Nathan Smith dismissed opener Chad Bowes and Matt Bacon dismissed three of the last four bats.
Spinner Michael Rippon and seamer Christi Viljoen did the gritty work, taking 2w each in tearing through the Canterbury top-six. That's what I like about this Otago bowling group as the youth is balanced out by the experienced Kiwi-Africans and we now have Bacon up in 2nd with 10w, with Bacon sniffing around the rare-air that Hamish Bennett exists in; Bennett and Bacon are the only bowlers with 10+ wickets.
Bacon, Duffy and Smith are all averaging under 26 though. I suspect they will share the wickets each game and as Duffy and Smith are on 8w, they could very easily catch Bacon.
Bennett only took 1w for Wellington, with the chief-destroyer for the Firebirds being spinner Malcolm Nofal. Nofal took 3w @ 4rpo and now slides into the best spinner spot, 4th overall with 8w @ 9.75avg/3.71rpo.
After a hot start, Auckland spinner Will Somerville has taking 2w in his last 3inns which has seen him drift down the wicket-taking rankings with 6w @ 43.50avg. Canterbury's Cole McConchie is the next best spinner behind Nofal with 7w @ 15avg/4.03rpo and he opened the bowling for the Cantabs, taking 2w @ 3.50rpo.
McConchie and Nofal both bat in the top-four for their respective teams, making it funky that the two best Ford Trophy spinners thus far are primarily batsmen who dabble in spin. While I reckon they are both handy enough to be legit all-rounders, bowling most games and that's exactly what has happened throughout their domestic careers, they both operate behind specialist spinners.
Nofal has leggy Peter Younghusband as the 'main' spinner for Wellington and Canterbury has Theo van Woerkom as well as Blake Coburn, both of whom play primarily as spinners. With Aotearoa's best spinners all away on tour, I'm eager to see who emerges as the best of the next wave and whether they can sustain that across the various formats.
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Peace and love 27.