Domestic Cricket Daily: Plunket Shield #6
As was the case with the Domestic Daily x Ford Trophy updates, the Plunket Shield updates need to be switched up. There's scorecards for y'all to check out so I won't be dropping minor details and I'll barely even concern myself with who won, lost or drew, what I'm going to do is just roll through notes and thoughts on what's gone down.
This round of the Plunket Shield was headlined by fringe-Blackcaps dominating and that's what I'll focus the majority of my energy on. When this happens, we really need to celebrate it because those guys on the bubble of the Blackcaps have earned that position via their domestic success and in theory, they should be a level or two above the rest of the domestic scene. All these geezers have been around the Blackcaps limited-overs teams for the past month or so as well, yet here they are taking that experience and scoring runs/taking wickets in the longer format.
Wellington vs Canterbury
The major narrative from Canterbury's win over Wellington was Matt Henry's 9 wickets (5/62 @ 2.38rpo, 4/75 @ 3.08rpo). Henry has slipped down the seam-bowling pecking order a wee bit with Lockie Ferguson and Colin de Grandhomme now viewed as better options in ODI cricket, however Henry has done exactly what would have been asked of him by the Blackcaps staff - assuming they communicate these plans with players. Taking into account his excessive haul of wickets here, Henry's taken 10 wickets in just two games and the only bloke who we can compare that to is Neil Wagner, with Wagner taking 14 wickets in two games (four innings' vs Henry's three); Wagner averages 13.07 and Henry averages 17.70.
Henry Nicholls is basically sitting in no-man's land thanks to copious amounts of domestic runs without an international call up. Going back to the two Test matches against Bangladesh where Nicholls hit 53, 4* and 98, Nicholls then hit scores of 76, 140, 65 and 64 in four-straight Ford Trophy games. Against Wellington, Nicholls chipped in with another half-century (71*) which now gives him seven 50+ scores in his last 10 games.
There's a low key chance that Nicholls could bump his First-Class average up over 40 (currently 37.12) which would give the 25-year-old FC and List-A averages over 40.
Canterbury's opening batsman Chad Bowes went large with 149 and for those who don't know, Bowes is a former South African Under-19 rep.
Anurag Verma was a gun for Wellington in the Ford Trophy and he continued his handy form with 4/39 @ 2.43rpo in the first innings of this game.
Otago vs Northern Districts
I wouldn't quite consider Anaru Kitchen as being on the fringes of Blackcaps selection, but the former Aucklander is loving life with Otago at the moment. Kitchen hit 76 followed by 120 against ND and after hitting 143* in his final Ford Trophy game, Kitchen has not hit two centuries and a 70-odd in his last three innings'.
This contest also saw young Otago seamer Nathan Smith rip his way through the ND batting line up with 5/56 @ 2.80rpo in the first innings, followed by a nifty 1/36 @ 2.29rpo in the second. Smith is only 18-years-old and in his 5-for, he snatched the wickets of Daniel Flynn, Bharat Popli, Corey Anderson, Nick Kelly and Scott Kuggeleijn which is an impressive collection of batsmen to send packing. With three FC games to his name, Smith has 9 wickets @ 24.66avg and while he doesn't appear to have anything obvious that makes him stand out (size, pace etc) he looks incredibly reliable and in Aotearoa, that's a fine asset tot have.
Many folk would be interested in BJ Watling's scores of 42 and 96, although his return to ND offered up a funky little situation where Tim Seifert gave up the wicket-keeping gloves and opened the batting. Dean Brownlie is with the Blackcaps and Watling needs to get some reps in ahead of the South African Test series, so the stars aligned for Seifert to jump up the order and Seifert responded strongly in the first innings with 97. This came at a strike-rate of 48.98, so it's good to see that Seifert has a well-rounded game as we tend to only see him play shots down the order in limited-overs stuff.
Fresh off his court appearance, Scott Kuggeleijn got back to doing what he does best - take wickets. Kuggeleijn took 5/68 @ 3.40rpo in the first innings and that takes him up to 23 wickets, a wicket behind Canterbury seamer Kyle Jamieson.
Auckland vs Central Districts
This game was all about Colin Munro ... and then Tom Bruce. Munro managed to bang out two centuries (146 and 142), both of which came with strike-rates over 130 and across the two centuries Munro hit 12 sixes. It really was a case of Munro doing what he does best and while many know of Munro from his T20 exploits, this isn't really out of the ordinary for Munro in Plunket Shield cricket. With a FC average of 52.39, the longer format is Munro's strongest and twin-centuries with strike-rates over 100 will certainly help Munro chase a cheeky milestone; his FC strike-rate is 97.20 while he's got strike-rates over 100 in List-A and T20 so there's every chance that he could own domestic strike-rates over 100 in all three formats.
Colin Munro (FC): 43 games, 3,301 runs, 52.39avg, 97.20sr, 12 x 100, 12 x 50.
Not only does Munro do his best work in the Plunket Shield, so does Tom Bruce and that's pretty funny when you consider that they have both been pigeon-holed as T20 batsmen. Bruce only hit the one century (127) and it didn't quite come in such block-busting fashion as Munro's, but that's not Bruce's deal as he's averaging 50.14 in FC cricket by taking his time and smacking bad balls to the boundary.
Yes, Bruce averages 50.14 and in 22 FC games he has 12 half-centuries. This season in the Plunket Shield Bruce has an average of 67 and in just five games he has hit two centuries and three half-centuries.
When pondering some Blackcaps context; Nicholls, Munro and Bruce are all competing for a middle order spot. Whether that's in ODI or Test cricket, they will be eyeing up No.5/6 in the batting line up and especially as we've got the ODI team playing right now, you've got to wonder whether Nicholls/Munro/Bruce is a better batting option than Luke Ronchi in the middle order.
Neil Broom is still battling to seal a middle order spot so it'll be interesting to see how this pans out through the rest of the season and into the Champions Trophy. You can only fit Nicholls/Munro/Bruce/Broom in if Tom Latham's got the wicket-keeping gloves though.