So this weird thing happened for Plunket Shield Round Four; these wannabe domestic cricket battlers wanted some Plunket Shield glory and came back down to domestic cricket from Blackcaps duty. Like, whatever. Like, omg, it's like when your mate wants all the attention and he sees you with another mate but he ain't having none of that so he comes over to do something crazy and like, steals all your attention for no reason, like, you were having a jolly ol' time with your other mate and were definitely going to give Mr Attention Seeking mate his attention after and all would have been sweet, but he makes things weird by like, being weird.

A whole lot of Blackcaps strolled into Plunket Shield cricket as if they own the place and this caused some major changes to Auckland, Northern Districts, Canterbury and Central Districts. Wellington and Otago were able to roll out similar groups to what they've done before largely thanks to a lack of Blackcaps, or the likes of Jimmy Neesham and Neil Wagner have been day one 2016/17 Plunket Shield homies for Otago.

And so I've sussed out a team of Plunket Shield Soldiers who have featured in the first three rounds of the season but aren't playing in round four. For housekeeping's sake, I've left out the likes of Seth Rance and Dean Brownlie who are absent via injury, there's also Doug Bracewell and Lockie Ferguson who aren't playing this round. Bracewell and Ferguson may be injured, they may not be, I just want to go full-hundies funky and challenge myself;

Jack Boyle (Canterbury), Henry Cooper (ND), Bharat Popli (ND), Rob O'Donnell (Auckland), Sean Solia (Auckland), Brad Schmulian (CD), Tim Johnston (Canterbury), Josef Walker (Auckland), Zak Gibson (ND), Blake Coburn (Canterbury), Brent Arnel (ND).

Canterbury opener Jack Boyle hasn't had a fabulous start to the season, in fact going back to late-February this year, Boyle hasn't passed 27 in 12 straight innings. With Tom Latham popping back in for Canterbury, Boyle was the unluggy bugger to make way but he should be back in the mix fairly quickly given that Latham will play a fair amount of Blackcaps cricket this summer now he's an ODI #5 batsman and all.

Joining Boyle is Northern Districts opener Henry Cooper, who made way for BJ Watling to open for ND. ND crammed all their Blackcaps in to face Watling and while Watling had been in ND's mix for the start of the Plunket Shield, the inclusions of Kane Williamson and Mitchell Santner (batting #4) forced Watling up to open. Cooper's been in good touch this season as well; 7, 52, 48 and 18. 

Bharat Popli was the other notable absentee for ND with Williamson flexin' his status and musclin' on in to Popli's #3 spot, giving Popli the 'yeah, cool bro, carry my drinks' 12th-man position. After second-year syndrome got the best of Popli last season, he's slid back into his rightful spot near the top of the run-scoring charts and has three 40+ scores (84, 23, 76, 42, 14, 0) this season. Having made a slick start to the season, Popli has kept his career First-Class averaging up over 40 (40.05) and always looks so sad when he gets dismissed.

Auckland's batting group is stacked with wannabe Plunket Shield Soldiers, which has pushed Rob O'Donnell and Sean Solia out. O'Donnell is my #4 in this team and is coming in fresh off an 84, which could change the path of his season given his early-season blues, that's if he can get back in the team as he'll be competing with Solia as long as the wannabes are stealing attention. Solia's only played one game this season but hit a 56 in Auckland's win over Otago last round - O'Donnell's notable knock also came in that win.

Low key funk about Solia; from that one appearance, Solia has a strike-rate of 26.51 this season and that reflects his career FC strike-rate of 34.91 while holding down a steady average of 32.12. I love young batsmen who bat according to the format and Solia's glorious Ford Trophy campaign last season saw him average 77.66 while striking at 99.57. Then his T20 strike-rate is 135.18 which means he flows through the formats like funk flows through my loins.

The third highest run-scorer isn't playing this round folks. Brad Schmulian got axed for Rossco and I'd give up my left pinky-toe to let Rossco bat, so fair play. Youz know all about Schmulian by now; 313 runs in five innings @ 62.60avg, casual 203 on debut.

I'm low key disgusted by Canterbury neglecting their spin-duo of Tim Johnston and Blake Coburn, to the point where I don't care who they selected ahead of them. We've been introduced to Coburn this season and while we should take a moment every day to express our gratitude for the fact that we're alive, pause what your doing and take a moment to express gratitude that we've got a lefty-leggy on the domestic circuit and a bloody good one at that; Coburn's taken 14w in five inns @ 27.85avg/3.31rpo.

Cobrun has formed a nifty combination with offie Johnston and Johnson ain't too far behind Coburn on 11w @ 32.63avg/2.51rpo.

Ol' mate Gavin Larsen got excited about three fast bowlers being selected in the Aotearoa A team and this makes me cringe. Geezers like fast bowlers, I love spinners and I've got Northern Districts offie Josef Walker in the gang as well, who made way for Ish Sodhi and Santner. Walker hasn't been fantastic this season, but he's managed to take a wicket in all but one of his six innings bowled this season and spinners are grinners. 

Rounding off the tea are two ND seamers in Brent Arnel and Zak Gibson. Gibson benefits from the recency bias as he played the last round and fellow ND seamer Brett Randell played the first two games; Randell was better with 4w @ 34.50avg/3.13rpo compared to Gibson's 2w @ 42avg/4.20rpo. Not too fussed with who youz may pick out of those two, I'm solely rockin' with Gibson as he played the last round.

Veteran Plunket Shield Soldier Brent Arnel has been solid in his return to ND and these two ND seamers have been shafted for the returns of Trent Boult and Tim Southee. Arnel's taken 9w @ 26avg/2.24rpo and he continues to do a fine job as the grizzliest seamer in Aotearoa. 

One time for the Plunket Shield Soldiers!

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Peace and love 27.