Domestic Cricket Daily: Women's One-Day Competition #1
Nice of you to let the others shine Suzie.
The Women's One-Day Competition (WODC) kicked off over the weekend and it was a good weekend for the big-dawgs of the competition with Auckland, Canterbury and Wellington all grabbing two wins. This is largely because they played the same opponent twice; Auckland beat Otago twice in Auckland, Canterbury beat Northern Districts twice in Christchurch and Wellington beat Central Districts twice in Levin.
Auckland bowled out Otago for less than 125 in both games, thus setting up fairly easy chases.
Canterbury were challenged a wee bit more by ND, hitting 225/5 from 50 overs and then restricting ND to 218/9 in 50 overs in the first game, before chasing ND's 207/9 in 43.3 overs on Sunday.
Wellington batted first in both games, hitting 290/9 and 219, then they dismissed CD for 136 and 139.
From the weekend's action, Natalie Dodd emerged as the leading run-scorer as she went back-to-back with half-centuries for ND. The ND skipper and opening batter hit a 74 and 62, which could be an ominous sign as she hit a 69 in the penultimate WODC game last season, meaning she's hit three 50+ scores in her last four 50-over innings.
The funk comes with a lack of White Ferns dominating the opening weekend, thus putting the depth of women's cricket in Aotearoa in the spotlight. Wellington's Lucy Doolan, Canterbury's Frances Mackay and Wellington's Liz Perry are joined by Rachel Priest as the top-five run-scorers from the first round of games and all have previously played ODI cricket for Aotearoa. In fact, they've all played over 10 ODIs but none featured in the White Ferns team that toured United Arab Emirates.
This means that Dodd, Doolan, Mackay and Perry have all been good enough to play ODI cricket but aren't quite in the mix right now as the wave of young players has swept through. Yet they are also still among Aotearoa's best cricketers having put up notable scores over the weekend.
There's a hefty amount of intrigue surrounding Priest as well, given that she was dropped for the UAE tour and as Sophie Devine exploded with runs in Priest's opening spot, Priest must now earn her opening spot back. And Priest has got off to the perfect start in that regard, hitting 44 and 50 in Wellington's two wins.
Leading the wicket-takers is a young Wellington leg-spinner...
No, not Amelia Kerr silly. It's Deanna Doughty and while Kerr took 1w in 15 overs @ 3.13rpo through both games, Doughty took 7w in 19.3 overs @ 2.66rpo. Doughty is 23yrs and backed up her 5-for in the first game with 2w in the second, which also means that Doughty has taken a wicket in each of her past seven 50-over innings.
Kerr was promoted to bat #3, although she could only manage scores of 0 and 12. Kerr was dismissed by CD offie Mikaela Greig in the first game as Greig took two consecutive wickets in the 23rd over, sending Kerr and Suzie McDonald back to the sheds after a run-out earlier in the over. Greig is 3rd in wickets, taking 5w in 16 overs @ 4.93rpo and joins Doughty as two spinners in the top-three wicket-takers, while Holly Huddleston's holding it down for the seamers.
Taking 3 wickets in each of the first two games, Huddleston one of two seamers with 4+ wickets; two seamers and five spinners have 4+ wickets. The other seamer is Samoan international Regina Lili'i (ND), while Anna Peterson, Amy Satterthwaite Frances Mackay and former Irish international Eimear Richardson are all spinners with 4 wickets.
Next weekend's round of games has Canterbury making the trip up to Auckland, while ND host CD in Hamilton and Wellington slide on down to Dunedin to face Otago. Hit an ad if you're enjoying the women's cricket content to show your support to the Niche Cache, it's like a donation but you don't need to do anything.
Peace and love 27.