Domestic Cricket Daily: Ford Trophy Round Rua
Auckland Aces are the only unbeaten team in Ford Trophy, assisted by the presence of Lockie Ferguson in yesterday's win over Central Districts Stags. Canterbury snared a win against Northern Districts Knights who are the only team without a win from two games, while Wellington Firebirds were too slick for Otago Volts.
Auckland batted first and jacked up 271, with all of their top-six batsmen passing 20. Sean Solia hit 54 in his #4 spot, while Rob O'Donnell hit 69 at #6 as the major contributors and the Stags were led by Seth Rance's 3w @ 4.70rpo and Willem Ludick's 3w @ 6.60rpo. Ferguson then took 5w @ 4.22rpo, with 2w in the Stags top-five before bullying a few lower order troopers as the Stags fell for 171 in 40 overs; Tom Bruce hit 56 for the Stags.
Kyle Jamieson's 2w @ 2.90rpo could be viewed as funkier than Ferguson's haul, given that Jamieson had George Worker back in the sheds early and then dismissed Josh Clarkson after he'd got a start and has a tendency to whack boundaries. A lot of the attention will be zoned in on Ferguson here and understandably so, yet don't sleep on Jamieson who missed the first game while on Aotearoa 'A' duty and slotted straight back in.
Solia, O'Donnell and Bruce all have back to back 50+ scores now. Four batsmen in Ford Trophy have passed 50+ twice in the first two games, those three are obviously in that group and are joined by Otago Volts' Nick Kelly. Auckland have needed these younger lads to step up as Martin Guptill's got 35 runs from 2inns and Colin Munro has 30 runs from 2inns, putting the middle order under a wee bit of pressure.
Funky note: Solia didn't pile up runs in Plunket Shield, he did take 4w @ 22.20avg though and now has back to back 50+ scores in Ford Trophy.
Funky note: eight bowlers have 4+ wickets, none of whom are Stags.
Otaog Volts fought valiantly against Wellington Firebirds, batting first to put 229/9 on the board. This came via 65 from Nick Kelly, along with steady contributions from fellow opener Mitch Rencwick (29), Dean Foxcrotf (37) and Anaru Kitchen's 45*. Ollie Newton's 3w @ 4rpo was the best for Wellington, while tweaker Malcolm Nofal chimed in with 2w @ 4.29rpo.
The Firebirds batsmen then chased down their target in 45.3ov, losing 4 wickets. Rachin Ravindra came back from Aotearoa 'A' duty with 57 @ 116.32sr and Devon Conway cruised to 79 to set up the win for Wellington, with middle order antics from Jimmy Neesham (40).
Kelly leads all Ford Trophy run-scorers, thanks to a century and a halfie so far. This comes after Kelly showed promising signs in Plunket Shield after moving down south from the Knights and Kelly has quietly built up a List-A career average of 39.76 in 29 games. Kelly, Josh Finnie and Dean Foxcroft are the three leading run-scorers for Otago and all three are of the younger variety, offering some hope and good vibes for Volts fans.
Andrew Fletcher burst on to the scene with oodles of runs last summer, taking his career average to 48.61 after 14 games. Fletcher now has 14 runs from 2inns @ 7avg, but kept his place for this game ahead of Fraser Colson; both are competing for that opening gig alongside Ravindra. The Firebirds have a decent collection of high-performing domestic batsmen, which eases the burden of those job-doers and I'm merely intrigued as to how Fletcher flows through Ford Trophy after that abundance of runs last summer.
Ollie Newton is 2nd behind Auckland's Ben Lister in the bowling rankings, both have 6w but Lister's been more economical. Newton's got 6w 11.33avg/4rpo and although the big donnie Ferguson is in 3rd, hot in pursuit, it's low key lovely to have less fancied seamers like Lister and Newton up the top.
Canterbury gave the Knights a touch up, on Knights soil after the Cantabs worked the way to 296/5 via Jack Boyle's 126 @ 90sr. That was part of a solid opening stand alongside Chad Bowes (46) and then Todd Astle went to the boom whare in cracking 46 @ 164.28sr. This didn't make for a pretty bowling card for the Knights as five bowlers conceded more than 5rpo, while Ish Sodhi was the only bowler to dip below that mark with 1w @ 4.90rpo.
Young opener Katene Clarke led the Knights' chase, hitting 48 and Brett Hampton's 47 gave the Knights a sniff later on. A strong all-round bowling performance saw Canterbury dismiss ND for 212 in 42.4ov though, all the bowlers took wickets and a couple run-outs sealed the deal.
Funky note: Jack Boyle avearged 55.40 in five Ford Trophy games last summer and has a List-A career average of 48 at 23-years-old.
Funky note: Andrew Ellis is back! Two games, 18ov and 5w @ 20avg/5.55rpo.
I'm going to finish with a focus on the main ODI Blackcaps, or T20I Blackcaps who are in Ford Trophy and a basic overview of their performances. I'll dive deeper into this with a bigger sample size, but generally, there isn't quite the level of domination we would expect from the best cricketers...
Martin Guptill: 2inns, 35 runs @ 17.50avg/67.30sr.
Colin Munro: 2inns, 30 runs @ 15avg/96.77sr.
Tom Bruce: 2inns, 102 runs @ 56avg/128.73sr.
Lockie Ferguson: 1inns, 9ov, 5w @ 7.60avg/4.22rpo.
Seth Rance: 2inns, 11.4ov, 3w @ 16avg/4.11rpo.
Todd Astle: 1inns, 10ov, 1w @ 45avg/4.5rpo.
Ish Sodhi: 2inns, 20ov, 1w @ 113avg/5.65rpo.
Blair Tickner: 1inns, 10ov, 1w @ 46avg/4.60rpo.
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Peace and love 27.