Domestic Cricket Daily: Plunket Shield #10
Dap 'em up
The Plunket Shield came to an end a few days ago with Canterbury taking the crown. Shout out to the Cantabs and their three key veterans in Peter Fulton, Andrew Ellis and Todd Astle who not only lead a winning environment but have consistently been among Canterbury's best performers. This has been the summer of the veterans and as is always the case; while most of my interest sits with the younger wave of cricketers, domestic cricket is only as strong as the veterans and boy do our cricketing veterans do a tremendous job.
These veterans will get plenty of loving in the coming days when I drop a Plunket Shield All Stars team, but before I get on to those angles, there were a few intriguing and dominant performances in each of the three fixtures. This is super-specific, zoning in on blokes who stood out in the final round and have some Blackcaps context surrounding them, their performances in this last round also capped off strong campaigns for these three jokers.
Canterbury won the Plunket Shield title, however they went down to Wellington and after wondering who would emerge as the premier wicket-keeper/batsman before the season started, it's clear that Tom Blundell has moved ahead of the chasing pack. Blundell hit 113 in Wellington's first innings, followed by 63* which in conjunction with a Hamish Marshall century, guided Wellington to victory.
Blundell finishes the season ranked 6th in runs and all five batsmen ahead of him are over 30-years-old, meaning that Blundell scored the most runs of the young wave. Blundell scored 656 runs @ 54.66avg and although he only scored one century, he did manage to hit five half-centuries; four 50+ innings came in the second stanza of the Plunket Shield season.
Cheeky shout here must go to Northern Districts' wicket-keeper/batsman Tim Seifert. Seifert hit 151 in ND's game against Otago and finished 2nd to Blundell in the wicket-keeping runs and as a young batsman.
ND's win over Otago also included a double-hundy for Anaru Kitchen and Kitchen's been doing Colin Munro-things to finish the season so churs all round. The funk however sits with Ish Sodhi as the ND leggy took 4/130 @ 4.81 and then 7/59 @ 2.68, giving Sodhi 11 wickets for the game and that was enough to take him up to 3rd in wickets with 40.
Sodhi joins fellow kiwi-Indian spinners Ajaz Patel (44wkts @30.81avg) and Tarun Nethula (43 wkts @ 30.06ag) as the only bowlers to take 40+ wickets this season. That all three of these lads are kiwi-Indians from Auckland (Nethula's Auckland's spinner, Patel and Sodhi left for opportunities elsewhere) is a pretty cool little note and this is the second season in row that kiwi-Indians have dominated with the ball; last season also featured Bhart Popli as the top run-scorer.
Unwanted by the Blackcaps Test team, Sodhi returned to domestic cricket and to be honest, Sodhi responded to the drop back to domestic cricket just as he's responded all summer with a steady flow of wickets. Sodhi's four Plunket Shield games after the ODI series vs South Africa saw him take 27 of his 40 wickets and he started the second stanza with 7/107 before finishing the season with 7/59.
Jeetan Patel's stocks have risen incredibly this summer, although we've also got Sodhi averaging 25.92 in the Plunket Shield. I don't know about y'all but having a leggy who put up a 25.92avg in the Plunket Shield this summer is fairly handy and Sodhi took his 40 wickets from just 299 overs while Nethula (396.3) and Patel (441.4) bowled considerably more. Patel's long-term international future is a weird one and his steady off-spin is a nice tool when combined with Santner's steady lefties and a reasonable seam attack. My view is that the Blackcaps need more strike-weapons and Sodhi has done exactly what was required of him by dominating in his return to Plunket Shield cricket.
Finally we have George Worker and it's only right that Worker gets the plug as he's the joker who pops up the most in the feedback of our glorious readers. Worker hit 41 and 130 batting at No.3 for Central Districts and his century helped CD grab a win as Worker hit his 130 at 90.27sr. While Blundell and Sodhi seem to have clear-ish paths laid out for them in terms of getting in/back in the Blackcaps Test team, Worker's path is far more murky.
The weight of runs from Worker speaks volumes though and he's only well down the run-scoring rankings as he only played five games - five games that made up the season stanza. In those five games, Worker hit 486 runs @ 60.75avg with a century and four half-centuries which means that in eight innings, Worker had five 50+ scores batting at No.3. Only three batsmen who scored over 400 runs, averaged over 60 and Worker joins Kitchen and Munro; fair company that.
This puts Worker's career First-Class average of 29.30 in the shade and while he's got a List-A average of 43.50, Worker is clearly showing that he's figured this four-day stuff out. Where that leaves Worker with regards to Test cricket is a weird one because no one's going to put pressure on Kane Williamson at No.3 and Worker would be competing with his CD comrades Will Young and Tom Bruce for middle order spots. We know Worker can open, so he could come into contention if Jeet Raval or Tom Latham goes down injured.
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