Plunket Shield round two gets underway today for Wellington Firebirds and Canterbury, then Otago Volts vs Auckland Aces and Northern Districts Knights vs Central Districts Stags starts tomorrow (Wednesday). Wellington and Auckland enjoyed wins in round tahi, taking them out to an early lead ahead of the chasing pack and the way things have played so far, offers us the top-three teams playing against a bottom-three team this week.

Wellington Firebirds vs Canterbury

Wellington got their summer started exactly as they would have hoped with a strong win over Otago, essentially picking up from last summer in terms of runs and wickets. Most notable was that Wellington took 20 wickets, led by 4w from Logan van Beek and 3w from lefty-spinner Malcolm Nofal in the first innings, before Nofal backed that up with another 4w, helped by young seamer Ben Sears' 3w.

A strong bowling performance from the Wellington Firebirds saw the Otago Volts dismissed for 199 batting first at the Basin Reserve. Logan van Beek leading the way for Wellington with 4-43 while Mitch Renwick top scored the Volts with 42.

A draw with Northern Districts in round tahi for Canterbury has me pondering the battle between Wellington's batsmen and the Canterbury bowlers. Caution around the potency of Canterbury's bowlers leads me to be intrigued as to who stands up and leads the way with Canterbury wickets. Granted, last week they faced a stacked Knights batting line up and that resulted in Canterbury's bowlers taking just 5w in the game, 2 of which came via Matt Henry and Todd Astle. Wellington have three batsmen in the top-10 for runs and while they don't have that particular Knights batting line up, those Firebirds batting line ups tend not to crumble and probably won't at the Basin.

Best Performers

Wellington

Devon Conway: 2inns, 115 runs @ 57.50avg/56.09sr, 1 x 50.

Rachi Ravindra: 2inns, 102 runs @ 102avg/49.03sr, 1 x 50.

Tom Blundell: 1inns, 96 runs @ 82avg/97.61sr, 1 x 50.

Malcolm Nofal: 17.4 overs, 7w @ 4.28avg/1.69rpo.

Logan van Beek: 25ov, 4w @ 15avg/2.40rpo.

Canterbury

Cole McConchie: 1inns, 107 runs @ 107avg/70.39sr, 1 x 100.

Henry Nicholls: 1inns, 103 runs @ 103avg/52.28sr, 1 x 100.

Will Williams: 23ov, 1w @ 59avg/2.56rpo.

Otago Volts vs Auckland Aces

Hosting Auckland presents a nice wee opportunity for Otago to show progress and while they got touched up by Wellington in the season opener, Otago also showcased some low key promising signs. That starts with Jacob Duffy's 7-wicket-haul to help keep a lid on Wellington's first innings, which did feature 3w in Wellington's tail-order, however after a slow start, Duffy managed to snare 4w in Wellington's top-six including Conway, Blundell and Jimmy Neesham.

Also promising for Otago was the work of Dean Foxcroft and Nick Kelly, two of their new recruits. After moving south from ND, Kelly got starts in both innings with scores of 37 and 40, but his number of deliveries stands out to me as Kelly faced 71 deliveries in the first dig and then 68 in the second. Big scores would have obviously helped Otago in that specific game, with the bigger picture in mind, getting plenty of time at the crease against a strong bowling outfit isn't so bad for Kelly.

Foxcroft hit 18 (39) and 54 (78) for a similar vibe to Kelly and these two shouldn't be the blokes relied upon to bolster Otago's batting. Otago need the likes of Hamish Rutherford and Neil Broom to lead, with Kelly and Foxcroft sprinkled on top, along with opener Cam Hawkins who has shown encouraging signs for the Volts in his brief career; Hawkins hit two scores of 10 last week, but faced 29 and 78 balls.

Otago will need wider contributions to handle an eager Auckland team who will be rather pleased with their win over Central Districts. Auckland took 20 wickets, not against a full-strength Stags batting group but reasonably close and having numerous bowlers take 2+ wickets, while only using five bowlers in both innings shows the skill on offer. All five Aces bowlers took wickets; Matt McEwan (4 and 4), Kyle Jamieson (1 and 2), Jamie Brown (2 and 1), Sean Solia (0 and 2) and Will Somerville (2 and 0).

A thrilling final day at Eden Park Outer Oval to close out the first round of the season between the Auckland Aces and Central Stags. The Aces were looking to defend just over 200 runs or could the Stags chase it down to start the season with a win?

That could lead to a dominant Auckland bowling performance, perhaps in favourable seam conditions down south. I'm always intrigued in Glenn Phillips' work, especially now that he missed out on Blackcaps T20I selection and Jeet Raval had low key tough time, scoring 7 and 3 last round. Auckland start as favourites here, but Otago will be sniffing around the upset if they can get into the contest early.

Best Performers

Otago

Nick Kelly: 2inns, 77 runs @ 38.50avg/55.39sr.

Dean Foxcroft: 2inns, 72 runs @ 36avg/61.53sr.

Jacob Duffy: 30ov, 9w @ 11.77/3.53rpo.

Dean Foxcroft: 19.3ov, 2w @ 24avg/2.46rpo.

Auckland

Martin Guptill: 2inns, 69 runs @ 34.50avg/41.81sr, 1 x 50.

Ben Horne: 2inns, 65 runs @ 65avg/33.85sr, 1 x 50.

Glenn Phillips: 2inns, 64 runs @ 32avg/65.97sr, 1 x 50.

Matt McEwan: 36.2ov, 8w @ 11.25avg/2.47rpo.

Jamie Brown: 27ov, 3w @ 21.66avg/2.40rpo.

Kyle Jamieson: 25ov, 3w @ 24.66avg/2.96rpo.

Northern Districts Knights vs Central Districts Stags

As fun as it is for casual cricket fans to be seduced by a team of Blackcaps playing Plunket Shield cricket, that doesn't help you a whole lot in the big scheme of things. Many of those Blackcaps will depart the Knights team and the real test for them will come as the usher in the second-tier of Knights to plug those holes. ND have done a great job of this in years past, having a wider squad of capable cricketers has legit been a strength of ND cricket.

My gut feel right now though is that this is working against ND, possibly evident in finishing 4th in the past two seasons. The Stags on the other hand, have back to back championships via their talent being available to play Plunket Shield cricket and this is the undercover narrative that tickles my toes. The Knights century-hitters vs Canterbury were Tim Seifert and Daryl Mitchell, both of whom are in the Blackcaps T20I squad, Mitchell Santner's also in that bucket with his 96 vs Canterbury and now Blackcaps stuff. Knights wickets went Neil Wager (3w) and Trent Boult (3w), so that shouldn't have a huge impact but the second-tier Knights batsmen will be tasked with absorbing the loss of the batting Blackcaps.

The Stags and Aces played out similar performances last week; a couple batsmen scoring enough, bowlers sharing wickets. Willem Ludick, Seth Rance, Blair Tickner (Blackcaps T20I) and Ben Wheeler all chipped in with impressive bowling performances and despite losing the first game, the Stags still jacked up wickets and will be fairly confident heading into this game.

I highly doubt George Worker and Greg Hay will struggle two games in a row as well. Worker had scores of 4 and 15, while Hay had 19 (53) and 4 vs Auckland, with Worker and Hay dismissed in first 10ov, three of a possible four times. These two are among Aotearoa's best domestic batsmen and although there are a lot of moving pieces in any cricket game, I'll draw a loose correlation between a lack of top-order runs and a first up loss for the Stags.

I'm leaning towards the Stags here, with a high level of interest in how they go about this game. The Stags have been a powerhouse recently and wouldn't have appreciated losing to Auckland, in Auckland which now puts the focus back on the Stags' response against the Knights. The Knights who still have some high-profile players in their mix, but will face an early test of their depth.

A series of rain interrupted days of play and a batting friendly surface saw Northern Districts put in a strong batting reply to Canterbury's first up 390. Tim Seifert started things off with his 5th first-class century before Daryl Mitchell recorded his highest score finishing 170*.