Ford Trophy cricket has hit nek level hard and fast mode, with all six teams congregating in Canterbury - wonder what they're all going to do on their day off today? With only a day before round nine gets underway and with a bunch of rounds coming in quick succession, I'm going to offer a bunch of notes from round eight and keep them light, then hopefully get into the trenches to reflect on these rounds nek week.

The big dawg performance came from Central Districts Stags batsman Josh Clarkson, who hit 111 off 107 in the Stags loss to Auckland Aces. This was Clarkson's second List-A century and his second 50+ score of the campaign, which has also featured Clarkson going 20+ in 4 of 7inns. At only 21yrs, Clarkson is now 11th in runs and Jimmy Neesham is the only batsman who has scored more runs than Clarkson, with a better strike-rate; 111.27sr vs 99.28sr.

This game also saw Tom Bruce hit 50 off 61 for the Stags, slotting back into their line up after being away on the A tour to United Arab Emirates. Bruce is skipper with Will Young not playing and this was only his second innings back in Ford Trophy, meaning that Bruce has already notched a half-century in 2inns.

Auckland were fairly comfortable in their run-chase with Ben Horne hitting 61 off 68 and Graeme Beghin hitting 56* off 53; Horne has been bumped up to open in recent innings. The funk here though again flows back to the Stags and Dean Foxcroft taking 3w @ 3.90rpo in 10 overs, finishing as CD's best bowler and flexing his bowling abilities. Foxcroft has made the batting side of things look easy and with his offies he dismissed openers Horne and Sean Solia, along with all-rounder Matt McEwan.

Andrew Fletcher passed 50 again, hitting 76 off 104 for Wellington Firebirds in their win over Canterbury. Fletcher now has five 50+ scores (3 x 100, 2 x 50) in 8inns and this time he received support from Malcolm Nofal, who has slid down the order after initially playing as an opener. Nofal hit 51*off 57 balls and this again points to the Kiwi-African vibes as Nofal, Fletcher, Beghin and Foxcroft are all doing their thang.

Nofal is low key in a battle with Canterbury all-round Cole McConchie, for the top-dawg spinner status, despite both playing as batting-spinners. Nofal didn't take a wicket in this game vs McConchie, while McConchie took 3w @ 2.80rpo, which puts them both on 12w total along with fellow batsman-spinner Anton Devcich; Nofal's got the best average though of 14.83, then McConchie's 19.41avg and Devcich is on 26.58avg.

Wellington seamer Bean Sears is emerging as someone to keep tabs on, as the hostile 20-year-old has taken 1+ wicket in each of his four Ford Trophy games thus far. Sears had his best outing with 3w @ 4.67 vs Canterbury, ripping through their middle order to swing the game in favour of Wellington and he's got 7w total @ 22.42avg/4.61rpo.

Then Otago Volts decided to bump seamer Nathan Smith up to #4 in the batting line up, where he scored 71 off 82 in the Volts' loss to Northern Districts Knights. Smith is primarily a seamer but he did hit 43 off 45 in round seven, batting #5 and he's now backed that up with another slick knock. Having Smith playing as a legit all-rounder alongside Michael Rippon - who also hit 71 off 64 balls with 5 sixes - allows Otago the luxury of bowling options; Smith, Rippon, Christi Viljoen, Jacob Duffy, Warren Barnes, Mathew Bacon, Anaru Kitchen, Josh Finnie.

Not that using seven bowlers helped them though (Finnie didn't bowl vs ND) as the Knights enjoyed 110 off 115 from Dean Brownlie, along with 50+ scores from Bharat Popli and Nick Kelly. Brownlie's on a minor streak having hit 73 in the last game and now 110.

I'm super intrigued by Popli though, who was recently injected into the Knights Ford Trophy team at the expense of Henry Cooper. Cooper hadn't passed 20 in 5inns after a strong start to the Plunket Shield and it's weird how Cooper has been replaced by Popli, both of whom have performed mainly in long format cricket. This was Popli's second Ford Trophy game and he hit 67 off 83 balls opening alongside Brownlie and perhaps we'll see Popli given an extended run in the one-day team now.

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Peace and love 27.