Domestic Cricket Daily #2.5 because I've got even more Plunket Shield thoughts for all you beautiful souls. I'll start with a few cricketers who have had low key impressive starts to the season, so low key that they've slid under my radar, lost in the jungle of immense Plunket Shield funk that surrounds them.

Michael Rae - Otago Volts

22-year-old seamer Michael Rae hasn't just taken 7 wickets @ 18.85avg/4.10rpo for the Volts so far this season, he's on an almighty streak of wicket-taking juice in 2017. Going back to February 25, Rae has taken a wicket in 11 consecutive innings and of those 11 innings, Rae has taken 2+ wickets in nine innings. This means that Rae isn't just battlin' away with multiple innings in which he takes a wicket, he's stacking up innings with multiple wickets and he's taken 2+ wickets in his last six innings.

Making his debut back in 2014, Rae has a First-Class average of 34.71/3.90rpo and he's taken 2+ wickets in every innings bowled this season; 2, 2, 3. I mean the dude bowls with a headband and rocks the long sleeves, aka Rae dribbles funk from his pores and some hefty bounce via his height surprised Michael Papps last round. Papps rocked back after noting the length and Rae got some movement into Papps off the pitch, combined with that steepling bounce which put Papps in an awkward position. Papps' awkward spot caused him to play on to his stumps.

Rae also forced Cameron Fletcher to play on to his stumps in the first game against Canterbury. Fletcher was super late in attempting a simple forward defence and he did the opposite of what the forward-defensive shot is designed to do - protect the stumps - as the ball caught the inside edge. In both wickets (Papps + Fletcher), Rae moved the ball off the pitch into the right-hander and hurried the batsman up which is why he's caught the inside edges.

Deep South Lord Royal Headband Rocker can do the catching thing as well (vs Canterbury, Blake Coburn the victim):

Otago have formed an impressive group of seamers led by Neil Wager, who is the OG and the young bucks Rae and Jacob Duffy. Rae appears to have that third seamer locked up behind Wagner and Duffy, which should give him ample opportunity to keep this streak of wicket-taking innings flowing.

Will Williams - Canterbury Kings

While Otago have a luxury of seamers (Nathan Smith got left our of their last playing XI) Canterbury have had to borrow Brett Hampton from Northern Districts and then rope in Daniel Sams from the Canterbury-aligned Sydney Thunder - Sams replaced Hampton and made his FC debut for the Kings. Canterbury have however been able to rely on Will Williams, who is so fresh he doesn't even have any bio information on his Cricinfo page.

Williams does however have his stats there and he's rockin' around with a career FC average of 24.93 which demands further inspection. Having made his debut back in 2012, Williams has only played seven games and while injuries may have played their part, Canterbury have also seen the likes of Kyle Jamieson, Ed Nuttall and Henry Shipley emerge in that time to further clutter their seam-bowling ranks; Fraser Sheat also made his debut last round #SeamDepthBruh.

Now that Canterbury are ravaged by injury, Williams has an opportunity to flex and although he hasn't been amazing this season (4 wickets @ 33.50avg/2.85rpo) he did play a vital role in Canterbury's latest win over Northern Districts. Lefty-leggy Blake Coburn got the headlines for his 7-wicket-haul, but Williams took the other 3 @ 1.79rpo and had Daniel Flynn caught early, then he picked up ND's other opener Henry Cooper who was anchoring the innings (52) and then the icing on the cake came as Williams had Anton Devcich caught - after Devcich hit a rapid hundy in the first dig.

On both occasions, Williams appears to have forced a horrible shot through away movement to the lefties (similar to Rae). Flynn got in a weird position to a delivery that was always niggling away from him and I'm not sure what Devcich was up to, but Williams' movement ensured that the ball caught the outside half of Devcich's bat.

Canterbury have a spin-duo of Coburn and Tim Johnston that is tearing teams apart, which along with Canterbury's injury situation is going to put Williams in an interesting spot. Williams should have ample chances to the great start to his career (sub-25avg wtf!) and as teams switch their attention to dealing with the spinners, they could look to score more against Williams or simply not pay Williams the respect of other bowlers. Williams has shown that he can do damage and it'd be silly to overlook his threat.

Ben Horne - Auckland Aces

I've talked a wee bit about Horne in recent times, so he's not sliding under my radar. When I have talked about him, I refer to his impressive stats in his short career and I just want to share those.

Horne has 116 runs this season @ 29avg. Not crazy, that is however more runs than Michael Guptill-Bunce and Jeet Raval who open for Auckland, more runs than Canterbury keeper Cameron Fletcher (93) and more runs than the slumping Central Districts youngster Will Young (60 runs @ 15avg, upto?)

Horne has a strike-rate this season of 41.72, similar to his career FC strike-rate of 51.77. That's a normal four-day strike-rate, the strike-rate of a batsman who understands that patience is required and someone who can read the situation of the innings. Then throw a T20 strike rate of 177.19 into the mix and you've got a batsman who can access boundaries, with ease.

Combine the two strike-rates and you've got a 23-year-old batsman who has the skills to succeed in opposite formats. Horne's already reached some level of success so far as he's averaging 37.22 in seven FC games and 50.50 in six T20 games. It's all fine and dandy to talk about strike-rates, they only matter when runs are being scored though and the fact that Horne is scoring runs is what makes those strike-rates funky. Horne has scores of 0, 24, 46 and 46 this season.

What I loved, was seeing Horne sweep Jeetan Patel when Wellington rolled Auckland. Everyone loves to highlight why Tom Latham goes well in India (or King Rossco) - he can sweep. Horne had three boundaries in his 24 vs Wellingto, a couple fours that were both sweeps and a six straight down the ground. All of which came off Patel's bowling and you can tell those sweeps tickled Patel the wrong way as he gave Horne a stare afterwards:

Here's a little something something for youz; a team made up of players from Auckland who aren't playing for Auckland. This isn't meant to be positive or negative and I'll leave that up to your perception, I just thought it would be a fun activity.

Rob Nicol - Cornwall.
Anaru Kitchen - Waitakere.
Brad Schmulian - East Coast Bays.
Jimmy Neesham - Suburbs New Lynn.
Shawn Hicks - Howick Pakuranga.
Cameron Fletcher - Numerous?
Ajaz Patel - Suburbs New Lynn.
Ish Sodhi - Papatoetoe.
Kyle Jamieson - Papatoetoe.
Warren Barnes - University.
Brett Randell - Eden Roskill.

Peace and love 27.

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