Plunket Shield cricket keeps on serving up new young guns.

The Plunket Shield has rolled through five rounds and will now go on a hiatus as our domestic cricket players get out their coloured clothing for some Super Smash T20 cricket and Ford Trophy one-day cricket. Northern Districts (52 points) are the only unbeaten team and are 3 points clear of Canterbury (49), while Wellington (47) and Auckland (41) are also lurking in contention with Central Districts (28) and Otago (23) anchored to the bottom of the table; both have been unable to put up a win.

Here's what you need to know from the opening five rounds...

Wellington's Luke Woodcock and Otago opening pair Brad Wilson and Hamish Rutherford are the three leading run-scorers. Rutherford and Wilson both hit centuries in the first game, scoring their two centuries and one half-centuries respectively in the first three rounds. Otago weren't helped by having a game washed out in Invercargill and they then had a rain-affected game against Wellington in Dunedin, putting the brakes on their rampant start to the season.

Woodcock leads all run-scorers and has a double-hundy to his name in what is a low key strong Wellington side. He gathered momentum nicely as well, putting up scores of 98, 120 and 203* in his first three innings.

Also staying in touch with the top run-scorers is Andrew Ellis, the Canterbury veteran who hit a big ol' 196 and averages 43. Ellis is a crucial member of the Canterbury side as he also offers very solid seam bowling and he's taken 9 wickets at an average of 28.11; a batting average over 40, bowling average under 30 is tremendous.

Besides Martin Guptill's freaky 335 runs from three innings at an average of 167.50, his cuzzy Michael Guptill-Bunce and CD Stags batsman Tom Bruce are two names that stand out. Guptill-Bunce and Bruce are actually the two most intriguing batsman for me in the Plunket Shield as they still have their best years ahead of them and have shown the ability consistently score runs, possibly opening the door for higher honours.

Only 3 runs separates them (345 for Guptill-Bunce, 342 for Bruce) and with strike-rates a whisker over 80, they have the highest strike-rates any batsmen with over 200 runs. In seven innings Bruce has hit three half-centuries and a century while Guptill-Bunce has the same, but in nine innings.

Bruce has taken the title from his CD comrade Ben Smith as the best batsman you don't know about; he's 25yrs and averages 46.51 in First-Class cricket.

I'm always interested in which wicket-keepers are scoring the most runs and it's a battle between Wellington's Tom Blundell, ND's Tim Seifert and CD's Dane Cleaver. Blundell got the call up to the New Zealand 'A' team, suggesting that he's next in line to take over from BJ Watling and that's fair enough with Blundell averaging 49.80 while Seifert has three half-centuries to Blundell's two and has scored more runs than Blundell, but only has an average of 28.88 thanks to Seifert batting in 10 innings to Blundell's six innings.

Cleaver, however, has two centuries and a half-century in seven innings with an average of 64. He's not high on most radars but Cleaver is leading a pack of second-tier wicket-keepers and as Watling is probably going to relinquish Blackcaps duties in limited overs cricket before Test cricket, it'll be very interesting to see how this battle pans out over the next few months.
Of the batsmen who have scored over 200 runs, 14 average more than Jeet Raval. Nothing against Raval, just a sign of some depth.

Bharat Popli has struggled to back up last season's domination, averaging just 20.90 with one half-century.

The young batsman to keep tabs on is Otago's Josh Finnie who is just 19yrs and averages 40.16 with scores of; 56, 0, 60, 98, 8 and 19.

Once again, it's the kiwi-Indian spinners who lead the way with the ball and in a funky note; the top four wicket-takers all hail from Auckland.

Tarun Nethula's leg-spin has given him 26 wickets for Auckland, while CD's Ajaz Patel is on 25 wickets. They have both bowled over 200 overs and are the only bowlers to do so, while they are also the only bowlers to take three 5-wicket-hauls thus far. Nethula's got a slightly better average (26.92 vs 27.08) and Patel's got the slightly better economy rate (2.69 vs 3.46).

It's impossible to ignore how dominant Nethula and Patel have been, including last season where they were the best spinners going around. This is also impressive given how pitches tend to offer seam bowlers much more, especially before Christmas with winter hanging around like pestering mate. Neither really gets mentioned in conversations about the Blackcaps spinning spot, but if they are able to maintain this domination through T20 and 50-over cricket, whispers will turn into 'oi, what about Nethula and Patel?'.

Jeetan Patel is the next best spinner on 18 wickets and he's actually got a better average/rpo than Nethula and Patel; 18 wickets at 25.83/2.52.

What I love about the wicket-takers rankings is that you could build a bowling attack based on the top-five wicket-takers. We've got a leggy and a left-arm spinner, then we have three seamers; Canterbury's Kyle Jamieson (24 wickets at 18avg/3.50rpo), Auckland's Lockie Ferguson (18 wickets at 22.33avg/3.05rpo) and ND's Scott Kuggeleijn (18 wickets at 24.50/3.60rpo).

All three of the best seamers in Aotearoa are fairly young as well with Ferguson that oldest at 25yrs, followed by Kuggeleijn who is 24yrs and Jamieson who is 21yrs.

Jamieson is the most impressive as he's taken the most wickets and is the youngest. His height is a unique advantage but he doesn't just bounce blokes out, also getting swing and seam to attack the stumps of our domestic batsmen. In all eight innings that he's bowled in this season, Jamieson has taken at least a wicket and we can stretch that back to last season; Jamieson has taken a wicket in 13-straight innings.

Jamieson and Ferguson would open the bowling for my Plunket Shield team with Ferguson's pace perfectly suited to what Jamieson does, while Kuggeleijn is my all-rounder. Not only has Kuggeleijn once again put himself near the top of the bowling rankings, he's also scored 290 runs at an average of 41.42 with a century and a half-century in nine innings.

Kuggeleijn has a better batting average than Raval, Peter Fulton, Hamish Marshall, Popli, Will Young and Dean Brownlie. This puts Kuggeleijn just ahead of Ellis as the best all-rounder in the country as he averages 41.42 and 24.50, while Ellis averages 43 and 28.11.

Here's my Plunket Shield All Stars from the opening stanza

Luke Woodcock (Welly), Brad Wilson (Otago), Michael Guptill-Bunce (Aux), Tom Bruce (CD), Andrew Ellis (Cant), Dane Cleaver (wk/CD), Scott Kuggeleijn (ND), Tarun Nethula (Aux, Kyle Jamieson (Cant), Lockie Ferguson (Aux), Ajaz Patel (CD).