Kiwi County Tour: Lord Jeetz Did Lord Jeetz Things
And da bowler.
After flicking the keys of the Kiwi County Tour bus over to Neil Wagner, we've got to roll through some of our other cuzzies on the KCT and wrap up how they went in the final few rounds of County cricket. Jeetan Patel, or Lord Jeetz was definitely the stand out and the big dawg capped off yet another glorious County season with a personal milestone, or two. Overall though, this was a downbuzz season for Jeetz.
Cricket's a team sport, so while Lord Jeetz did deliver some fine individual performances and got the deserved recognition, that his Warwickshire Bears were relegated from Division One is stink. Lord Jeetz told the Stratford Herald that "we are all hurting at Edgebaston...because our standards are set so high" and said that this season was "very disappointing" not once, but twice. Bummer and this coincides with the 2017 season being the first County season since 2012 that Lord Jeetz did not take 50+ wickets (five seasons straight!) as Jeetz finished the season with a mediocre 41 wickets.
Of course, 41 wickets goes alright and Jeetz still finished the season with an average under 30 (29.80) and this had Lord Jeetz ranked 8th in Division One wickets. What was rather incredible though, was Lord Jeetz run-scoring as most kiwis know him for his lack of ability with the willow. Jeetz stroked 608 runs, averaging 27.63 and this was good enough to put Jeetz in 23rd spot for Division One runs. This also put Jeetz ahead (in terms of average) of his Warwickshire comrade Ian Bell as well as former England opener Adam Lyth, former England batsman Nick Compton, fringe England player and Wellington homie Scott Borthwick.
Jeetz definitely stroked those runs, scoring with a strike-rate of 72.64 and that's the highest strike-rate of any batsman who scored more runs that Jeetz. Coming in down the order, in team that got relegated - so they obviously didn't dominate with the bat - Jeetz got plenty of opportunities and only knows one way to play. His century, yes Lord Jeetz hit a century along with a couple half-centuries, was an example of this as Jeetz scored 100 off 112 balls, giving him an impressive strike-rate of 89.28 with 17 fours; 68 of the 100 runs came via boundaries.
This knock came in the first innings of Warwickshire's loss to Yorkshire and the Bears were dismissed for 219, with Ian Bell the only other notable run-scorer via his 51. That means that Jeetz scored almost half of Warwickshire's runs in this innings and only two other batsmen passed got into double figures.
Cricket nerds will enjoy this list of batsmen who scored more runs and averaged more than Jeetz in Division One (in ascending order); George Bailey (610/38.12avg), Ryan ten Doeschate (659/41.18avg), Alistair Cook (667/66.70avg), Marcus Trescothick (714/28.56), Sam Robson (785/39.25avg), Shiv Chanderpaul (831/51.93avg), Gary Ballance (951/67.92avg), Jonathan Trott (967/37.19avg) and the holy grail - Kumar Sangakkara (1,491/106.50avg).
Given that Jeetz finish the season as Warwickshire's 3rd highest run-scorer and leading wicket-taker, it's only right that he scooped a few awards. Jeetz was named the Member's Player of the Year and the Player's Player of the Year for Warwickshire, voted on by Warwickshire's Members and Players. Jeetz also finished 2nd in the PCA (Professional Cricketer's Association) Overall MVP to Samit Patel and this maintains a righteous streak of MVP seasons alive for Patel. In 2014, Patel finished 1st, in 2015 he was 3rd, in 2016 he was back in 1st and this year he was 2nd.
Patel has been in the top-three of the PCA Overall MVP for four years straight, chur boy. Let's not forget that Lord Jetez is now 37-years-old and is still dominating County cricket, now he'll pop back over to Aotearoa to get down to business with Wellington ahead of the kiwi summer. Perhaps we'll see Jeetz slide up a few spots in the batting order for the Firebirds?
That's unlikely and we'll probably see Jeetz come in after Wellington's grizzly veterans have done their job, play his shots and frustrate the living crap out of opposition bowling attacks. Oh and take a few wickets while he's at it. Lord Jeetz has done it again folks and he returns to Aotearoa with another County season, another reason why he'll go down in history as a Warwickshire legend.
Peace and love 27.
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