On the back of the Blackcaps battlers saving the second Test vs England and bidding farewell to the summer of international cricket, Central Districts Stags hoisted the Plunket Shield in all its glory. This marked the true end of the kiwi summer and as I sat back with a joint, looking at scorecards and Plunket Shield player rankings, it dawned on me that the Stags were a Plunket Shield All Stars team unto-themselves.

Thus, I have told the story about the fairly epic Stags team in a video and how individuals either performed consistently throughout the whole Plunket Shield campaign (Greg Hay), or found righteous form in the second stanza of the season (Will Young).

A quick run through of some of the performances that helped Central Districts Stags become 2017/18 Plunket Shield Champions. PATREON: www.patreon.com/elnichecache

That leaves me with the rest of the Plunket Shield and I've whipped up an All Stars team, sans-Stags. The general selection policy is to roll with those who played at least five games across the season. I do rely on stats to nut out the best performers, however I have selected players and a team that I like, no picked purely on stats. Leave a comment with your own Plunket Shield All Stars, based on the same selection criteria.

Here's the team in batting order, which is of low key importance:

Michael Papps, Henry Cooper, Tim Seifert (wk), Luke Woodcock, Daryl Mitchell, Jimmy Neesham, Logan van Beek, Jeetan Patel, Lockie Ferguson, Hamish Bennett, Ben Lister.

Michael Papps (Wellington)

814 runs @ 50.87avg, 2 x 100.

Finishing the season with the most runs, Papps almost scored half of his total runs in one innings as he had the highest score of any player this season with 316*. Consistency wasn't Papps' strongest point though, given that he hit a couple centuries in 18inns but didn't register any other 50+ scores. You can't ignore the leading run-scorer though and with an inexperienced opening partner, Papps' veteran status is also of great value.

Henry Cooper (Northern Districts)

450 runs @ 40.90avg, 1 x 100, 3 x 50.

A sizzling second stanza from Cooper has him earning a PSAS nod. After putting up a 52 and 48 in the first stanza, Cooper come through with scores of 60, 7, 136, 38, 32, 0 and 52 in the last five games. Cooper played 7 of his 12 First-Class games this summer and took his FC hundies/halfies totals from 1/1 to 2/4. This was a fine breakout summer for Cooper and the weight of his runs saw him hold off challenges from Hamish Rutherford and Chad Bowes for this opening spot.

Tim Seifert (Northern Districts)

703 runs @ 50.12avg, 2 x 100, 3 x 50.

Will Young flicked a switch halfway through the summer to storm up the run-scoring rankings, but it wasn't enough to pip Seifert as the best young batsman of the season. Jimmy Neesham and Anton Devcich were the only batsmen to hit more sixes than Seifert's 11 and even though BJ Watling played plenty of PS cricket this summer, Seifert commanded selection through his batting.

Northern Districts Cricket congratulates Tim Seifert, Luke Williamson and Kurtley Watson on being named in the New Zealand Under-19s World Cup squad that will be hunting the world title in Dubai in February. Full media release: http://www.ndcricket.co.nz/ndca/news/nzc-u19-world-cup-2014-team-announcement

Luke Woodcock (Wellington)

682 runs @ 42.62avg, 2 x 100, 2 x 50.

The other half of Wellington's opening combo, Woodcock's experience and utility value is a beautiful asset. I had to pick Woodcock, although juggling the make up of the PSAS was tricky and it should be seen as a positive that Woodcock is capable of dropping down to #4. Woodcock also offers some left-arm tweakers which will be handy (5w @ 27.80avg) and while he didn't take many wickets, his stingey economy rate of 3.05 is ideal to tie an end up.

Daryl Mitchell (Northern Districts)

273 runs @ 45.50avg, 1 x 100, 2 x 50/7w @ 32.85avg, 2.83rpo.

This was my most difficult selection decision and I myself made strong cases for a bunch of different players, so I don't doubt that youz will throw up a plethora of options. Mitchell's average is boosted by a couple not-outs, which is why he has a higher than average than most with fewer runs than most. This is more about how Mitchell fits into the team and I like his all-round abilities, as well as the fact that he has done enough to be in the PSAS mix. There's also a slight reward for Mitchell's limited overs performances here, which shouldn't come into the equation, but fuck it; Mitchell has been strong across all three formats and he allows other pieces of the puzzle to fit in this PSAS team.

Jimmy Neesham (Otago)

533 runs @ 35.53avg, 3 x 50/11w@ 36.36, 2.79rpo.

My funkiest yarn this season is the Jimmy Neesham yarn and given that Neesham was dropped by the Blackcaps to go back and suss out domestic cricket, Neesham has come rather close to doing that and should be in the mix. Earlier in the season I wrote the opposite as Neesham had done nothing in his four-game stint in the first stanza, yet he bounced back to hit all of his half-centuries in the second stanza and it's impossible not to mention Neesham's Ford Trophy campaign in this yarn.

Neesham only hit two 50s in the FT, yet all of Neesham's runs have come after a minor sabbatical mid-season. In the nine games since then, has five 50+ scores, wait, that's five 60+ scores. Few would argue that Neesham is one of the best cricketers in Aotearoa, from a pure talent perspective and while Neesham's numbers aren't extravagant, the overall narrative of Neesham's summer has captivated me.

Logan van Beek (Wellington)

40w @ 14.47avg, 3pro.

The most extravagant performer of the summer was van Beek. Prior to the season I was super intrigued to see how the 'change in scenery' would work for van Beek after he left Canterbury to join Wellington along with Michael Bracewell who came to Wellington from Otago; there were no findings to this experiment as van Beek was awesome and Bracewell averaged 19.56 with the bat.

Hopefully this becomes more common in domestic cricket; a player moving out of his home province and basing himself at a venue that better suits his strengths. Canterbury's Waikari clay was never ideal for an into-the-pitch bounce bowler, in Logan's case.

Van Beek finished with a slightly better record than the Firebirds OG Hamish Bennett and exploded into the top-tier of kiwi seamers. There's also some funk in that van Beek finished 2nd in wickets and averaged 14.47, while no Canterbury seamer took more than 20w - despite 21 bowlers taking 20+ wickets. Canterbury had a bit of a seamer crisis this season and van Beek's departure was far from ideal, especially given the summer he's had.

Jeetan Patel (Wellington)

36w @ 22.02avg, 2.48rpo.

Off to join Warwickshire for yet another Kiwi County Tour campaign (this time as captain), Patel has shown that he's still an off-spinning beast. Patel took all four of his 5-wicket-hauls in the second stanza and in the 7inns he bowled in that second stanza, he took 3+ wickets in 5inns. Just another casual season of cricket for Lord Jeetz, who plays year-round.

We caught up with new club captain Jeetan Patel to talk about his new role at the club and look ahead to the 2018 season.

Lockie Ferguson (Auckland)

33w @ 17.39avg, 3.50rpo.

I feel like Lockie Ferguson, the Plunket Shield bowler is still under-rated or under-appreciated by the kiwi cricket fan. Having been pigeon-holed as a limited overs bowler with the battlers, it's not all that surprising that Ferguson is still slept on. There's no better sight though than Ferguson steaming in, in his whites, bowling hooping in-swingers to righties and knocking their stumps out ... then bowling a delivery that ducks into a leftie and knocks his stumps out.
Ferguson took five 5-wicket-hauls in just 8inns this summer and has a career FC average of 23.26.

Hamish Bennett (Wellington)

38w @ 15.39avg, 2.71rpo.

How can you not get a wee bit excited about the prospect of Ferguson and Bennett in the same bowling attack? Bennett has a habit of churning out freakish bowling numbers in domestic cricket and he's done it once again as part of a lethal Wellington bowling attack. Bennett, van Beek, Patel and Iain McPeake all took 35+ wickets and all three of the seamers averaged under 20.

Ben Lister (Auckland)

28w @ 19.39avg, 2.97rpo.

There were plenty of contenders for this last bowling spot and I've opted for someone who consistently caught my eye after making his debut this season. Lister's ability to move the ball away from righties as a left-arm seamer had me frothing, especially when he took a bunch of wickets against Northern Districts when all the Blackcaps were on deck.

While his numbers are definitely worthy of selection, I've gone with Lister based on him being effective and offering something fairly unique in the domestic set up. Second-year syndrome is thing in domestic cricket, so I'm already intrigued as to how Lister goes next summer.

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Peace and love 27.