There's beauty in fresh faces breaking into domestic cricket and there is beauty in Aotearoa's best cricketers dropping down a level to dominate the local scene. Centuries to Martin Guptill and Glenn Phillips fit that mould and put Auckland Aces and a dominant spot over Otago Volts, while Canterbury grabbed a narrow win over Northern Districts Knights and Central Districts Stags beat Wellington Firebirds.

This puts Canterbury and Auckland at the top of the Ford Trophy ladder, Canterbury slightly ahead as they have a no-result while Auckland have a loss to their record. Wellington sit in third, then Central Districts, Northern Districts and Otago have one win each.

Batting first vs Otago, Auckland wiggled their way to 310/5 via 117 from Guptill and 156 @ 115.55 from Glenn Phillips. With 2w @ 5.70rpo and 3w @ 4.10rpo, the young seam duo of Jacob Duffy and Nathan Smith were Otago's best bowlers, but there wasn't much support from the Volts stable and the Volts were then all-out for 213. Neil Broom gave Otago hope with 66 and Smith again showcased his all-round talents with 43 @ 110.25sr, but the Aces bowlers were too slick. All six of Auckland's bowlers took at least a wicket, Ben Lister, Sean Solia and Will Somerville each took 2w.

This is Guptill's second knock in a row after 76 last round and he now has 228 runs @ 57avg/91.56sr. Phillips has been simmering this summer, with a solid Plunket Shield opening followed by a century for Aotearoa A and then scores of 26, 40 and 156 in his Ford Trophy campaign. With younger bro Dale Phillips bowling for Otago, there was bound to be some Phillips on Phillips crime, although Dale got lucky and conceded just one boundary from Glenn's willow...

Smith is Otago's only bowler who has 6+ wickets, currently sitting 5th in wickets with 7w @ 19.28avg/4.50rpo. Next best are Michael Rippon and Jacoby Duffy who each have 5w with averages over 30. If Smith can maintain this work with the ball and get his batting average of 19 through the first four games, up closer to 30, then we'll be looking at a low key Volts gun.

Auckland's Ben Lister has set up shop near the top of the wicket-taking rankings, currently 3rd with 9w @ 15.88avg/4.79rpo. It's an interesting mix of seamers leading the way; Ollie Newton's 1st, Seth Rance 2nd, Lister 3rd, Andrew Ellis 4th and Smith 5th. I'm super intrigued by Lister as he's had a hefty impact for Auckland in coloured clothing after taking 7w @ 24avg/4.80rpo in four games last season - now he's got 7w @ 19.28 after four games this season.

Canterbury batted first against Northern Districts and thanks largely to all their batsmen contributing something, then knocks of 58 from Cole McConchie and 49 @ 113.95sr from Andrew Ellis, the Cantabs put up 283 in 49 overs. Scott Kuggeleijn took 4w @ 5.55rpo in 9ov as the best Knights bowler and the Knights responded strongly, enjoying steady contributions throughout their line up with Dean Brownlie's 66 and Henry Cooper's 45 the pick of the bunch.

34* @ 106.25sr from Anurag Verma almost steered the Knights home, instead they fell one run short. All Canterbury bowlers took a wicket, Henry Shipley's 2w @ 6.71rpo and Ed Nuttall's 3w @ 6.90rpo led the way.

Andrew Ellis still goes alright...

Bat: 3inns, 67 runs, 67avg/124.07sr.

Ball: 32.5ov, 8w @ 21.62avg/5.26rpo.

We could be seeing McConchie heating up also, with back to back scores during this Canterbury extravaganza week. 60* then 58 here, averaging 68.50 with a very healthy strike-rate of 93.83 and there's every chance McConchie kicks on to pile up more runs.

After being lost in the domestic cricket wilderness a wee bit, Anurag Verma is the Knights best bowler with 7w @ 28.56avg/6.25rpo. Verma has featured in all four games so far and apart from Anton Devcich and Brett Randell who have played just one game each, Verma's the only Knights bowler averaging under 30.

The Knights are also getting great value out of young batsmen, but like the bowlers this is perhaps why they aren't racking up wins. Four games into his List-A career, Katene Clarke leads the Knights with runs, averaging 40.25/96.98sr and then Henry Cooper's next with 37.50avg/90.36. While it's clear that Clarke is an attacking presence up the top, Cooper's strike-rate is funky considering he appears to be one of the more typical Plunket Shield openers in Aotearoa and a low key sign of class is being able to move through formats with a strike-rate aligned to that format.

The Stags put 251/8 on the board batting first vs Wellington Firebirds, with George Worker's 47 and 54 from Tom Bruce leading the way. Netwon, Ben Sears and Jeetan Patel (between England coaching duties) took 2w each with Patel the most economical, conceding just 4rpo. 4w @ 3.96rpo from Seth Rance and 3w @ 4rpo from Worker had the Firebirds all out for 222, as Michael Bracewell's 66 and 65* from Malcolm Nofal led Wellington's run-scorers.

Worker leads all run-scorers in the Ford Trophy, averaging 59/91.82sr with scores of 135, 0, 54, 47 thus far. Not quite getting the spotlight that others may perhaps be getting is Tom Bruce, although Bruce is currently the most consistent batsman in Ford Trophy and the only batsman who has three 50+ scores; 56, 56, 36 and 54.

Not only is Bruce consistent, he's consistently scoring swiftly as he owns a strike-rate of 112.22. Only two batsmen have 200+ runs with 100+ strike-rates and they are Bruce and Rachin Ravindra, two promising batsmen who are as funky as each other in terms of their ceilings. Bruce's List-A career strike-rate is 109.42 and while averaging 35.80, that's bonkers.

Also: across Plunket Shield and Ford Trophy, Bruce has batted 8inns and hit 50+ in 5inns.

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Peace and love 27.