As Andrew Fletcher hit his third century of the Ford Trophy in Wellington Firebirds' win over Central Districts Stags, another Ford Trophy opener in Cantabrian Jack Boyle also went large and has low key stacked up a pile of runs to match Fletcher's dominance. The plight of Fletcher and Boyle has left Auckland Aces opener Sean Solia in their wake though, as Solia's nek level start to the season hasn't continued and the runs were instead given to Fletcher and Boyle.

The cricketing gods are funky like that and as Solia scored 10 in Auckland's loss to Otago Volts, he now has 5inns in a row with a double-figure score without passing 50. Ths 5inns run comes after he hit 133* and then 63, putting him in a great spot to start the campaign and as Solia has got starts in each of these 5inns (39, 17, 22, 17, 10), he must be fairly frustrated that he can't cash in and steer the Aces to dominant totals.

I highlight Solia's change in fortunes, to juxtapose Solia against Fletcher and also Boyle. Fletcher now has 3 x 100, 1 x 50 after hitting 100 off 123 balls as he opened the innings and went deep into the 44th over before being stumped. This is the Fletcher takeover of Ford Trophy and we're in the beautiful position of watching it all unfold in front of us, with Fletcher taking on the ODI anchor role and doing so with a slightly crazy level of efficiency.

Fletcher has his 475 runs @ 79.16avg and the most interesting stat here is Fletcher's strike-rate of 77.48. Only one batsman with 300+ runs has a strike-rate lower than Fletcher and that is Solia, pointing to the way Fletcher builds his innings and more importantly, how Fletcher's style compliments how the following batsmen in Wellington's line up operate.

Wellington also have Devon Conway and Jimmy Neesham with 300+ runs, while Michael Bracewell has 269 runs. That's four of their top-five, with 260+ runs and while this win for Wellington bucked the trend as Fletcher scored his hundy with 81.30sr and Conway hit 57 with a strike-rate of 78.08, overall the Firebirds have Conway with 82.71sr, Neesham with 112.89sr and Bracewell with 87.05sr.

In losing the early wicket of opener Michael Pollard in the 8th over, Conway came to the crease early and had to craft his innings yesterday. Conway was also dismissed in the 29th over, before he could speed up his run-scoring tempo while Fletcher went deeper into the innings and had to match the flow of the innings. Outside of this bubble though, Fletcher's strike-rate doesn't really matter because of the volume of runs he is scoring and then the balance of Wellington's batting line up plays a huge factor.

Stats tell a portion of the yarn, knowing that Neesham plays his strokes, Bracewell's a powerful hitter and Conway works through the gears to cash in later on, isn't quite in the stats line. Wellington have Fletcher who they can reliably build around and then it depends on which batsmen his feelin' lovely on that given day.

The major focus in this round seven wrap though is Jack Boyle, who hit 126 off 146 balls @ 86.30r in Canterbury's loss to Northern Districts Knights. Boyle's century was matched by Stephen Murdoch who smacked 112 off 93 balls (120.43sr) as Murdoch came into #3 with Henry Nicholls and Tom Latham now in United Arab Emirates. With two hefty hundies, Canterbury passed 300 and I'm not surprised that the Knights chased it down given that Canterbury don't have a bowler in the group off 11 Ford Trophy bowlers with 10+ wickets thus far.

Canterbury do however have this Boyle lad, who like Murdoch now benefits from the departures of Nicholls and Latham to consistently open for Canterbury. Boyle has played only 3inns and he has passed 50 in all of those innings, with the century he just hit alongside two half-centuries prior to this game; 71, 66 and 126.

This gives Boyle an average of 87.66 and while there are some impressive averages in this small sample size, Boyle's average is only beaten by Joe Carter' 226avg with comes via 3 not-outs in 4inns. Carter's doing a low key amazing job after dropping down the order in Ford Trophy cricket this season as he's tended to open across the different formats for the Knights and to put his 3 not-outs into perspective; no other batsman with 200+ runs has more than 1 not-out innings.

As an opener, Boyle has no not-outs and still has an average over 80 as he is scoring runs literally every time he walk out to bat. Not just in Ford Trophy cricket either as Boyle hit scores of 3 and 108 in his only Plunket Shield appearance this season, giving him a streak of 4inns with 50+ scores. Both centuries were Boyle's first in the respective formats and with a career List-A average of 48.30 at just 22-years-old, Boyle has slid into the domestic scene and immediately found the runs.

Fun fact: Fletcher (2) and Boyle (1) have combined for 3 sixes, while Neesham has 14 sixes.

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Peace and love 27.