Every team has played two Super Smash games, so I'll squeeze a cheeky notebook session in at opportune moments like this. We've seen some dominant batting performances from Tim Seifert, Ben Stokes and Jesse Ryder, along with some rather exciting knocks that fall in the 'what you got nek?' bucket from the likes of Rob O'Donnell, Cameron Fletcher, Will Young and Michael Bracewell.

In terms of the bowlers, well, I've been a wee bit disappointed in what the bowlers have dished up and I suspect that'll be a point of difference between the Super Smash and Big Bash League. There's not enough evidence available to really go knee-deep on this but there are similarities in the way Ryder and Stokes scored their sixes especially, with bowlers serving up a few too many bad balls that deserved to be smacked for bigguns'.

Ryder hit 6 sixes, and he didn't really have to do anything crazy to hit them in his 84 off 40 balls. Of course, most sixes will come off bad balls - I'm not really offering any crazy insight here - but T20 cricket is about limiting the bad balls and forcing the batsman to manufacture a run-scoring shot from a delivery that is difficult to score off. Bowling any thing slightly short to Ryder is the opposite of that:

That's 5 of Ryder's 6 sixes, with the last one a sweep off Blake Coburn and it's not just 'back of a length' stuff that is too short against Ryder, it's good length balls that are too short as well with 2 sixes coming off good length balls. This isn't the best T20 bowling and more than anything, this is an example of the adjustments that need to be made be between the other formats and T20. Bowling such umm, T20 pies could be viewed as the difference in this game because that's 30 runs there that would have kept Central Districts under 200; Canterbury made 205 chasing CD's 213.

Same goes for Canterbury's Ben Stokes, who smoked Otago's bowling for 93 off 47 deliveries and hit 7 sixes. Stokes played a few reverse-sweepies to Otago's spinners especially and that's what a quality international batsman can do as he smoked sixes in his arc and when Otago's bowlers tried to hit wide yorkers, Stokes could go to his reverse-sweepie and still score.

There was a lot of bowling in his 'six-hitting-arc' though and Stokes literally just had to swing through this arc to send the ball flying. Restricting such deliveries that would be defended in four-day cricket, or prodded at for a single in 50-over cricket, is what will eventually separate teams as we roll through the competition. Here's Stokes' 7 sixes and peep how similar they all look:

The only difference in those 7 sixes is that a couple of them were hit over long-off, while the rest went through mid-wicket. Stokes effectively just plowed anything that was in his zone (half-volleys) for six and shit happens, meaning that there's always going to be a few deliveries that miss the spot; 7 deliveries being served up in Stokes' zone can be the difference between winning and losing.

'Good bowling' can't be pin-pointed in T20 cricket, because good bowling to Stokes is avoiding his zone and to a kiwi domestic batsman, that zone might be all good, or too a shorter batsman who doesn't have the same arc. Otago hit Stokes' zone too often in this game though and paid the price.

Ryder and Stokes are exceptional batsmen and they don't need help in hitting sixes, they don't need you as the bowling side to bowl into areas/zones/spots that are easy to hit. As good as these lads and other domestic batsmen are, as T20 bowlers you simply need to make it as hard as possible. We've had a few hefty innings so far in Super Smash and my vibe from watching most of them, led by the examples in Ryder and Stokes, is that the bowlers haven't quite made the required adjustments.

That leads me to ponder what batsmen will be doing later on in the tournament when bowlers have found their groove, plus they'll have greater knowledge of who is trying to hit where - what the zones are for different players.

Small samples are tasty, but not enough. Hence I'm intrigued by the overall domestic summer when I've only got two Super Smash games to run off and no one should be surprised by Ryder's block-busting knock given that he's dominated domestic cricket all summer. Same goes for Tim Seifert, who endured a bit of a dip through the Ford Trophy but was among the best batsmen in Plunket Shield; 47.22avg/55.19sr.

Now, Seifert's slipped into hitting mode and blasted 107 off 42 balls for Northern Districts vs Auckland. Seifert got most of his early ND opportunities in limited overs cricket and appeared to have a game suited to scoring quickly down the order, which is why I've been so positive about Seifert as a batsman; he went on to score PS runs. We don't know how the rest of the Super Smash will play out, but for sure understand that Seifert is a very good batsman based on what he does in all formats.

Guess what folks? Seifert got plenty of pies served up with a bottle of tomato sauce as well:

Seifert did play two scrumptious reversies, the first of which was glorious as he genuinely manufactured a boundary to a ball that was creeping into his pads. The second reversie was still a pie as Colin Munro delivered a short slower-ball, otherwise Seifert hit deliveries in his zone over the mid-wicket boundary.

Again, this stuff is all fairly easy to hit if you're a slick batsman and Seifert's a top-three Aotearoa batsman right now. Seifert showed that he can create boundaries, yet he also punished deliveries that deserved to be smoked and the Auckland bowlers didn't really challenge Seifert's hitting ability by forcing him to play over cover, or dealing with more yorkers etc.

I'll be back tomorrow with some hard and fast Super Smash notes for your beautiful cricket lovers.

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Peace and love 27.