When will Maddy Green and Holly Huddleston play WBBL?

Just as the the 50-over competition was gathering some traction, NZC's weird scheduling means that after two rounds the one-day competition stops. Bit downbuzz that the momentum of the first two rounds of one-day cricket is halted, although we do have some Women's Big Bash League cricket to enjoy and there's plenty of kiwi funk gearing up to take over WBBL.

From the second round of fixtures, Auckland stacked up back to back wins over Canterbury as they chased down 148 to win the first game and then set Canterbury a target of 205 before dismissing the Cantabs for 163.

Northern Districts and Central Districts won a game each in Hamilton. CD got the bickies first up, chasing 171 and then ND turned the tables on them as they chased down 214.

Weekend glory was also shared between Otago and Wellington, with the teams that batted first sealing wins. Otago couldn't chased down Wellington's target of 261 and then Wellington couldn't chased down Otago's 225 to win.

We've already had splashes of T20 thrown in-between the first two rounds of 50-over cricket and Auckland's Maddy Green came into this round hot off a 53 in a T20 game vs Canterbury, she then doubled up on 50+ scores in the two 50-over games vs Canterbury. That means that Green is on a streak of three straight games with 50+ scores which is bloody impressive and with dual-notable scores, Green is the star of the show this round.

Website player profiles

Green was simmering away after the first round, having sent a warning shot throughout the competition with 61* in the opening game vs Otago. She then hit 79* and 80, giving Green three notable scores in four innings thus far, doing so with a very handy strike-rate of 73.02 which is the highest of any batter who has scored of 140 runs; Green's scored 222.

Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that Green as a 25-year-old skipper, batting #3. Oh and that the next best Auckland batswoman is Anna Peterson who has 61 runs, with 59 of those coming in a single innings. Green is 1st in runs and Peterson is 25th, meaning that the young Auckland captain is holding their batting together and leading by the finest example possible. Green has been a fairly consistent White Ferns squad selection over the past year or so, however she is yet to make her mark on the international scene and prior to the tour to UAE (vs Pakistan), Green had just a single score over 15 in 11 innings; career-best 46.

Green did find some consistency in the UAE though, with scores of 22, 10* and 26, which has obviously translated nicely over to domestic cricket in Aotearoa.

The other batswoman who has over 200 runs so far is another captain, Canterbury's Frances Mackay. Mackay hit 82 in the second game vs Auckland, opening the innings and so far she has scores of; 41, 57*, 25 and 82.

This got me wondering about the ages of the respective captains, given that Mackay is just 27-years-old and with such glorious veteran talent in Aotearoa, it's great to see younger players earning captain duties. Suzie Bates (Otago) and Liz Perry (30yrs) are the exceptions to the trend and that's wonderful, with ND captain Natalie Dodd only 25yrs and CD captain Anlo van Deventer only 24yrs. I've been exciting about the young talent coming through Aotearoa in women's cricket and this is only amplified with young players taking on leadership responsibilities as well.

Holly Huddleston leads all wicket-takers with 12w in 4 innings @ 8.58avg/2.92rpo, taking 2 and 4 wickets over the weekend. The White Ferns seamer has her Auckland comrade Emma Fulbrook for company in the upper echelon of the bowling ranks and while Fulbrook is joined by a long list of bowlers who have taken 6w, Fulbrook's done so in just 3inns and conceded just 3rpo.

There's a splash of funk here as Fulbrook she made the move up from Wellington ahead of this season and is only 20yrs. Huddleston and Fulbrook just happen to be the only seamers in that bowling upper echelon as well, with Deanna Doughty (10w @ 11.80avg/2.98rpo), Mikaela Greig (9w @ 18avg/4.83rpo), Lucy Doolan (8w @ 13.75avg/4.02rpo) and Mackay (7w @ 18.28avg/3.87rpo) all bowling spin.

Doughty is still lurking on Huddleston's heels after she backed up her impressive opening weekend with 2w @ 3.20rpo in the win over Otago, then she took 1w @ 3.40rpo in the loss to Otago. Both times Doughty opened the bowling for Wellington and the 23-year-old may be the breakout player of the first two rounds, if it was possible to make such a judgement.

So much water will go under the bridge between now and when the one-day cricket sparks up again, enough to perhaps offer a vastly different landscape when we swing back around. Now we move on to WBBL and I've wrapped up a preview of the kiwis in the WBBL here, so have a geeze at that and hit an ad if you're enjoying the coverage of women's cricket. Chur to you for reading about women's cricket.

Peace and love 27.