Kiwi County Tour #11 (County Championship Update)
Holding it down for the KCT.
Very slim pickings on the Kiwi County Tour at the moment with James Franklin the only cuzzy doing his thing on the KCT bus. Jeetan Patel is wasting his time with the Blackcaps, while Matt Quinn and Neil Wagner weren't required for business this round with Essex not playing so they get me company as we discussed the finer points of life in South Auckland.
James Franklin
Middlesex vs Somerset
You can't go wrong with Franklin being the only geezer in action as he is the skipper of Middlesex who call Lord's home. Middlesex and Somerset played out a draw and Franklin was busy with bat and ball, taking 2/34 @ 2.12 in 16 overs as Somerset worked their way to 443/9dec.
Franklin was then left stranded on 49* with Middlesex dismissed for 358 in reply. Franklin cam in at his usual No.7 spot and there aren't too many No.7's in County cricket who can do what Franklin can, this time he played a very steady hand in scoring his 49* at a strike-rate of 46.66 and led Middlesex as they nudged their total up slowly. This game fizzled as Somerset tried to make it a contest, declaring on 161/3 but there was no more action and Franklin didn't even use himself at the bowling crease in the second dig.
With 184 runs this season, Franklin is a long way behind the great Kumar Sangakkarra who leads the Division One run-scoring with 876 runs @ 109.50avg. Franklin doesn't have the weight of runs but he's averaging 46 as a No.7 batsman, coming in when Middlesex need to bump up their run-rate or salvage the innings and when you then consider that Franklin is also chipping in with a bowling average of 22.87, you've got a fine all-rounder.
Let's compare Franklin's bowling stats to our other KCT bowlers...
James Franklin: 68 overs, 8 wickets, 22.87avg, 2.69rpo.
Jeetan Patel: 128 overs, 8 wickets, 40.12avg, 2.5rpo.
Neil Wagner: 173.2 overs, 15 wickets, 42.13avg, 3.64rpo.
Matt Quinn: 52 overs, 6 wickets, 29.66avg, 3.42rpo.
An interesting note to finish on, especially given Jeetan Patel's struggles this season relative to his almighty success of recent years is that in Patel's absence, Warwickshire have promoted spinner Sukhjit Singh. A 21-year-old left-arm spinner, Singh took 6/144 @ 2.88rpo in Warwickshire's loss to Hampshire and the youngster got through 50 overs which is fairly crazy.
Singh hasn't been overly dominant in his last few games for Warwickshire 2nd XI while Lord Jeetz was playing for Warwickshire. His last last four 2nd XI games have yielded: 2/90, 0/55, 4/93, 1/52, 0/35, 1/29. As Jeetz will remain on Blackcaps duty for at least another week or so, it'll be very interesting to see how Singh performs and there could be some long-term ramifications if Jeetz continues to trend downwards in conjunction with Singh's emergence.
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