Plunket Shield cricket is back, although there's still a hefty contingent of kiwi cricketers busy on Blackcaps, Aotearoa A or even Aotearoa 11 duties and that can be viewed as a beautiful thing given the opportunities such a weird schedule offers. There were a bunch of notable batting performances in round three, led by Greg Hay's 226 in the first (and only) batting innings of Central Districts Stags win over Otago Volts; the performances of spinners across Aotearoa really got me frothing though.

Remember that this is coming after the Blackcaps won their Test series vs Pakistan in United Arab Emirates. Will Somerville made his debut in the third Test and Ajaz Patel made his debut in the first Test, while Ish Sodhi didn't play the third Test. That's three spinners in the touring group and then we had Mitchell Santner and Todd Astle who were out via injury, giving us five spinners in the wider Blackcaps group.

With that context in mind, we slide into Plunket Shield cricket where Canterbury's Theo van Woerkom 4 wickets in both innings of their loss to Auckland Aces, Jeetan Patel (Wellington Firebirds) and Josef Walker (Northern Districts Knights had a second innings battle in ND's win over Wellington and then Dean Foxcroft continued to ride his wave in taking 3w in both innings for CD vs Otago.

That's at least a spinner in each game making major contributions and we tend not to expect that prior to Christmas, unless you're Ajaz Patel steaming towards another 40+ wicket Plunket Shield. Patel's absence, along with all those other Blackcaps spinners means that we can get a better geeze at the tier below and if you were impressed by what Patel and Somerville did in UAE, know that there are plenty of options moving forward.

Van Woerkom is the most interesting of the Plunket Shield group, followed by Foxcroft. The lefty tweaker was the only Canterbury bowler to take more than 2w in this game, after playing in all three First Class games vs India A. Bowling in 4 innings, van Woerkom took 2w total (1 in each innings of the first game) which is a fair return from a fresh spinner coming up against India's next best batsmen.

Taking 6w in the Ford Trophy (6inns) @ 47.33avg/4.81rpo prior to his Aotearoa A duties, van Woerkom took his first wickets the Plunket Shield thus far after three games. All of this comes together to paint a picture of van Woerkom being solid, without being amazing prior to - and during - the series vs India A, then returning with a bang. When that happens, I'm intrigued as to whether van Woerkom in this instance, has gained confidence and benefited from bowling against the Indians and then, how van Woerkom continues to showcase his development.

Stags batsman Foxcroft burst on to the scene in the Ford Trophy and showed signs of steady offies, taking 4w @ 37avg/4.93rpo in 30ov. I'm not sure that there is a bigger winner from the Blackcaps/NZ A absences than Foxcroft as he has directly benefited from much of the stacked Stags batting line up being away and now Foxcroft moves into Plunket Shield cricket.

Foxcroft couldn't emulate Hay's double-hundy, or Tom Bruce's 71 or Kieran Noema-Barnett's 108 in CD's batting innings - Foxcroft batted #3 for 10 runs. When it came time to roll the arm over, as the 6th bowling option and used after frontline spinner Felix Murray (also a young spin prospect), Foxcroft took 3w in 9.3 overs @ 0.84 to help CD roll Otago for 162.

Following on, Otago again fell victim to Foxcroft who took 4w @ 1.84rpo in 31 overs. The Stags also enjoyed some nifty leggies from batsman Brad Schmulian (3w @ 1.28 in 24.1ov), resulting in two of CD's top-three batsmen (Schmulian opened, Foxcroft #3) taking 7w between them in the second innings. Schmulian and Foxcroft both bowled far more overs than Murray's 9ov, however this is more about the Stags relying on three spinners and in this current spin climate, that's kinda funky.

Less funky, but along the same lines was Jeetan Patel's 4w @ 3.12rpo in 28.1ov for Wellington and then ND's Josef Walker's 5w @ 2.17rpo in 11.3ov in the second innings. Patel took a first innings wicket and Walker went wicket-less, although Walker's 5-for help dismiss Wellington for 142 in pursuit of 241 and thus giving the Knights the win.

The wicket-taking rankings are all over the show with so many ins and outs over the first three games, here are the Plunket Shield records for the best spinners...

Ish Sodhi (ND): 3inns, 9w @ 16.66avg/2.14rpo.

Jeetan Patel (Wel): 5inns, 9w @ 35.66avg/2.91rpo.

Theo van Woerkom (Can): 3inns, 8w @ 27avg/3.22rpo.

Dean Foxcroft (CD): 2inns, 7w @ 9.28avg/1.60rpo.

Will Somerville (Auc): 4inns, 7w @ 25.85avg/2.54rpo.

I also want to highlight the work of Blair Tickner, Scott Kuggeleijn and Kyle Jamieson. These three have been busy with NZ A to start their season and made their first Plunket Shield appearances of the summer. Kuggeleijn took 2w in each innings of ND's win, giving him 4w @ 21avg/2.52rpo. Tickner took 4w @ 1.30rpo for CD in their first bowling innings to walk away from his first outing with 17.75avg/1.73rpo and Jamieson returned to lead Canterbury's bowling attack to take 2w and 1w; 25.33avg/2.53rpo.

Not pure dominance, yet those are steady returns from an interesting crop of seam prospects. These three aren't in the NZ A one-day squad, which has a slightly more experienced tinge to it than the other A squads of this summer and we will hopefully now see these seamers settle into their Plunket Shield work and have an impact.

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Peace and love 27.