The big bopper domestic cricketers are sizzling away in Ford Trophy, although the big bopper team is yet to grab a win. Central Districts Stags are without a win through three rounds after losing to Northern Districts Knights, while Canterbury strolled to a hefty win over Otago Volts and Auckland Aces fell short vs Wellington Firebirds. This leaves Canterbury, Auckland and Wellington all with two wins from their three games, Northern Districts and Otago have a win each and Central Districts are posted at the bottom.

Wellingon batted first against Auckland and put up 344/5 thanks to 130 @ 119.26sr from Rachin Ravindra, along with 75 from fellow opener Andrew Fletcher and 54* @ 128.57 from skipper Michael Bracewell. There wasn't much to the Auckland bowling performance with Will Somerville the best via his 2w @ 4.60rpo.

Auckland responded with the bat though as their openers Martin Guptill and Colin Munro went large. Guptill hit 76 @ 113.43sr and Munro cracked 119 @ 136.78sr as they worked their way to 155/1 and apart from 40's from Glenn Phillips and Craig Cachopa, Auckland couldn't quite wrap up the innings. Jimmy Neesham's penultimate over went for just 3 runs and he took the wicket of Somerville (21 off 20), to ensure a Firebirds win.

Ravindra has exploded into Ford Trophy and is currently knocking around with a List-A average of 42.16. Chuck in a career strike-rate of 101.60 and Ravindra is making a mark on the domestic scene, after scores of 57 and 130 in his two Ford Trophy games thus far. Ravindra also appeared to handle Lockie Ferguson nicely, grabbing a few boundaries off Ferguson and showcasing a bit of variety in how he went about those boundaries...

14 batsmen have 100+ runs in Ford Trophy at the moment, all except for Ravindra have played three games. Ravindra also has the most fours of any Ford Trophy batsman with 26 and his Ford Trophy average of 93.50 through these two games is the highest of any notable batsman.

Fletcher snared his first score of the Ford Trophy, trying to fight of second year syndrome after an epic campaign last summer. Anchoring the innings, Fletcher looks like a steady partner for Ravindra up the top and Fletcher's List-A average now sits at 50.50.

As for Guptill and Munro, this is exactly what we expect them to do. This makes for a tough judgement and the same goes for any other Blackcaps dropping down to domestic cricket as they should be scoring runs/taking wickets. With Auckland in need of a hot start chasing 300+, Guptill and Munro did exactly that in hitting 18 fours and 9 sixes between them.

Wellington's best bowlers were Ollie Newton and Mr Ravindra (2w), who both went for 5.30rpo from their 10 overs. Newton took 3w, all of which came late in the innings as Newton ripped through the middle order in dismissing Cachopa, Rob O'Donnell and Ben Horne; O'Donnell and Horne in consecutive deliveries. Newton leads all wicket-takers with 9w @ 13.44avg/4.48rpo and has 3w in each game so far.

CD Stags batted first vs ND Knights, putting up 270 via 54 from George Worker and 83 from Dane Cleaver. Other than their openers again leading the way, most of the Stags batsmen dabbled in runs to keep their innings moving forwards. Anurag Verma took 3w @ 6.67rpo and Daryl Mitchell took 3w @ 6.75rpo as the Knights leading bowlers.

Worker currently sits 2nd in runs with 189 runs @ 63avg/92.19sr. Cleaver's move to the top of the order is also working nicely for him as he has 147 runs @ 49avg/75sr.

The Knights top-order then did the business with Tim Seifert hitting 65, Kieran Clarke hitting 55 @ 141.02sr, Dean Brownlie hitting 33, Joe Carter hitting 39 and Mitchell wrapping it all up with 62* @ 114.81. ND reached their target losing 5 wickets in 48.4ov. Seth Rance took 2w @ 5.10rpo for CD and Rance is the Stags best bowler thus far with 5w @ 19.80avg/4.56rpo.

Housekeeping: I thought I had my 'K Clarke's' mixed up as clicking K Clarke on the Cricinfo scorecards takes you through to Kristian Clarke who is also a ND cricket and in Kristian's profile are the three Ford Trophy games. Right now in Ford Trophy, we are dealing with Katene Clarke, but Katene doesn't have the Ford Trophy games listed in his profile.

I want to keep that focus on Clarke because runs from Seifert and Mitchell are the status-quo at this stage and Clarke's the low key factor of the Knights batting line up. Despite batting alongside Seifert, Clarke was the aggressor and Clarke has shown glimpses of this class in previous innings; 22, 48 and 55 here. Sitting in 10th for runs, Clarke has an overall strike-rate of 91.24 and he is 20-years-old, so I'll be keeping a close eye as to how he flows through Ford Trophy.

Canterbury jacked up 292/5 vs Otago, again with contributions spread throughout their batting line up. Chad Bowes started the innings with 76, Stephen Murdoch hit 55, Ken McClure hit 43 before Cole McConchie whacked 60 @ 122.44. Otago's Jacob Duffy and Nathan Smith were the most economical Volts bowlers, conceding less than 5rpo and taking a wicket each.

Michael Rippon was the only Otago batsman to pass 40, hitting 48* batting #7 as the Volts were all out for 175. Andrew Hazeldine took 3w @ 3.50rpo in just 4ov, while Andrew Ellis took 2w @ 5.12rpo in 6.5ov as the chief-destroyers for Canterbury, aligned with their overall Ford Trophy campaigns so far; Ellis is 3rd in wickets with 7w @ 19.28avg/5.43rpo and Hazeldine is 6th with 5w @ 10.60avg/4.41rpo.

We're in a lovely patch where all games are being played in Christchurch, so the next round goes down tomorrow; Auckland vs Otago, Canterbury vs Northern Districts and Wellington vs Central Districts.

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Peace and love 27.