The beauty of each sporting season is that there's a high chance someone new pops on to the radar, taking their opportunity in stepping up to the national level and right now, that's Wellington Firebirds opening batsman Andrew Fletcher. I do feel a bit cheap in regurgitating the same names like Fletcher or his Wellington comrades Devon Conway and Michael Bracewell, however this is where domestic cricket is right now as we've got a bunch of lads who are in a purple patch of form.

Fletcher made his List-A debut in round one of the Ford Trophy and started with a century and in yesterday's round three win over Otago Volts, Fletcher was back at it. Hitting 125 off 150 balls, which is super similar to his first hundy in where he scored 132* from 155; strike-rate of 85.16 in his first vs 83.33 in his second. In watching Fletcher's boundaries, what stands out is his ability to score all around the wicket without over-extending himself and he doesn't appear to manufacture shots too often.

Instead, Fletcher seems to wait for the bowler to dip in a wee bit too straight or bowl a half-tracker which he can dispose of. Of course, we don't have access to how Fletcher handles good deliveries so it's hard to really go deep into this analysis, although given the time Fletcher has had to suss out his game at the 'A' level and in club cricket, the vibe here is one of a batsman who has come into domestic cricket at the right time.

Wellington also enjoyed a 74 from Devon Conway and 66* from Michael Bracewell vs Otago. Bracewell now has a hundy and a half-century in 3inns, while Cownay has two 50+ innings after three rounds and when you consider that Fletcher's hit two hundies so far; Wellington have three batsmen who have passed 50 in 2 of their 3inns thus far.

Bracewell is in sizzling form as he blazed his 66 off just 51 balls and now has a Ford Trophy strike-rate of 106.52, which is the highest strike-rate of the eight batsmen with 140+ runs. In fact, Bracewell is the only batsman in that group with a strike-rate over 100 and as I said recently; Bracewell hit two 50+ scores in the Plunket Shield prior to Ford Trophy (3inns).

This is the perfect time to package the Plunket Shield and Ford Trophy stuff together because Conway and Bracewell are sitting on 3inns in both competitions...

Devon Conway

Plunket Shield: 3inns, 253 runs @ 253avg, 1 x 100.

Ford Trophy: 3inns, 145 runs @ 48.33avg, 2 x 50.

Michael Bracewell

Plunket Shield: 3inns, 172 runs @ 86avg, 2 x 50.

Ford Trophy: 3inns, 196 runs @ 98avg, 1 x 100, 1 x 50.

Guess what? It's the same scenario with the ball, where Hamish Bennett is the dominant force. Bennett took 2w @ 2.50rpo in 6ov vs Otago, dismissing both the Otago openers in Hamish Rutherford and Mitch Renwick, although these wickets came in the 9th over (Renwick) and 27th over (Rutherford).

I spun a minor yarn about Doug Bracewell consistently taking a few wickets most innings and how that's the real mark of an above-average bowler. The king of this right now is Bennett as he has taken 8w in 3inns, but split them up nicely in taking 3w first, then 3w and 2w. Keep in mind that this is nothing new, considering how dangerous Bennett has been with the ball, especially in recent seasons and while he doesn't look to be bowling rapid, his heavy-ball, in-ducking style is unique within the domestic circuit.

Bennet is 1st in Ford Trophy wickets with 8w @ 15.25avg/4.88rpo and is 4th in Plunket Shield wickets with 9w (3inns) @ 17.44avg/2.90rpo. In either competition, Bennett is also assisted by another solid seamer, albeit two different seamers for two different competitions. In the Plunket Shield, Bennett's side-kick is Iain McPeake who has taken 6w @ 17.83avg/2.39rpo and in Ford Trophy, it is Ollie Newton with 5w @ 15.40avg/3.91rpo.

Funnily enough, Newton didn't play yesterday and was replaced by McPeake. McPeake didn't take a wicket and went for 5.60rpo off his 5ov, yet in came Jimmy Neesham to take 3w @ 2.43rpo. The time will come to write about Neesham and his work in domestic cricket after the change of scenery, more water needs to flow under that bridge to get a legit idea of where Neesham's at. Right now though, Neesham has 5w @ 29.60avg/5.48rpo as well as 92 runs @ 46avg/113.58sr and that's a solid start to the one-day campaign.

Finally, a word about Sean Solia ... who got overtaken by Fletcher as the leading run-scorer after being run-out in weird circumstances on 39.

That is to say that Solia had got a start, done the graft in almost getting through to the 20th over as an opener and then had an unfortunate run-out. Bummer and that could just be a blip on the run-scoring radar or the start of a minor plateau. Solia did however have a huge impact with the ball as he took 4w @ 4rpo off 9.3 overs and along with Jamie Brown's 2w @ 2.78rpo in 9ov, they were Auckland's best bowlers.

Auckland lost this game vs Canterbury by 6 runs and given the form Solia is/was in, it's safe to say that had he not been run-out, Auckland would have snuck home as winners. The point here though is that Solia is a legit all-rounder, who is averaging under 30 in both Plunket Shield and Ford Trophy with the ball, along with his fairly epic Ford Trophy run-scoring. If Solia isn't going large with the runs, he'll find a way to impact the game with the ball and vice-versa.

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Peace and love 27.