Domestic Cricket Daily: Super Smash Diaries #2
Aotearoa's Women's Big Bash League wahine have slid back into Women's Super Smash cricket and they are out here living their best life as one would expect. With a roster stacked with Aotearoa's best cricketers, one would also expect Wellington Blaze to be truckin' along nicely and as they currently sit 3-0, they are battling hard to keep Auckland Hearts off their heels with the Hearts also yet to lose a game.
Both sitting at 3-0, Auckland and Wellington obviously haven't played each other yet and in an odd twist, they won't play each other until December 30th. As far as run-scoring goes, the duties have been nicely split for Wellington and Rachel Priest is the only Blaze batswoman in the top-10 for runs. With fellow WBBL troopers Maddy Green, Sophie Devine and Amelia Kerr joining Priest in averaging over 25, with strike-rates over 140, Wellington have enjoyed fabulous service from their best players so far in terms of simply doing what needs to be done.
Wellington's batswomen haven't had to do too much as they have bowled first in two of their three games, rolling Central Districts Hinds for 56 and then restricting Canterbury to 137/6. With so much talent in their batting unit, one would expect the likes of Kerr or Leigh Kasperek, perhaps even Devine to be leading the wicket-takers, but once again we have leggy Deanna Doughty dominating.
Last year's WSS saw Doughty finish 2nd in wickets, behind Kerr. Two Wellington leggies doing their thing and Doughty continues to make a solid impression, taking 7 wickets @ 10avg/6.26rpo in her 11.1 overs so far and Doughty's been consistent with 2+ wickets in each game.
Kasperek sits in 4th for wickets, taking 5w @ 8.80avg/4rpo, while Jess Kerr is close behind with 5w @ 10.20avg/4.25rpo. That gives the Blaze three bowlers in the top-5 for wickets, all of whom are averaging less than 11 and that doesn't even include Devine or Amelia Kerr, who are simmering away averaging around 20.
Auckland also have a nice spread of contributions with veteran Katie Perkins leading their run-scoring, sitting 3rd with 162 runs @ 81avg/137.28sr. In 3inns, Perkins has scores of 65, 69* and 28, while youngster Saachi Shahri is next best for Auckland with 80 runs @ 50avg/142.85sr. Shahri's average is high via a not-out and she's ranked 11th in runs, although only four other batters have more runs and higher strike-rates than Shahri.
Spinner Anna Peterson leads the Hearts bowlers with 5w @ 15.60avg/6.50rpo and seamer Arlene Kelly joins Peterson in the top-10 with 4w @ 19.25avg/6.41rpo. With multiple players in the top-10 for wickets and runs, both Auckland and Wellington are showing the value of talent spread throughout their 11 and while both teams have some of Aotearoa's best, both teams are getting value from role-players.
Otago have 18-year-old Emma Black 2nd in wickets with 7w @ 12.57avg/6.28rpo and Black has taken a wicket in all four games she's played. While Black has emerged as a youngster to keep an eye on, White Ferns Suzie Bates and Katey Martin have scored 381 of Otago's 566 runs thus far. Bates has scored 30+ in every game; 31, 76, 106* and 47. Those runs have come with an overall strike-rate of 134.02, while Martin has found some form recently with scores of 64* and 30 in her last two games.
Northern's Caitlin Gurrey though, is the leading run-scorer for WSS at the moment and this comes after Gurrey finished 2nd in runs last summer. With four 50+ scores in 7inns last WSS, Gurrey now has three 50+ scores in her 3inns this time around; 90*, 71 and 106*. The funk doesn't stop there though, because Gurrey wrapped up the one-day competition first stanza in 1st for runs with five 50+ scores in her 6inns, featuring two centuries.
This summer, Gurrey has three centuries and five half-centuries in 9inns - that's eight 50+ scores in 9inns. In the WSS, Gurrey has a strike-rate of 173.37 which is the highest strike-rate in the top-10 for runs and if any of those slices don't quite hammer home Gurrey's dominance; Gurrey has scored 30+ in each of her last 10inns.
Recent action in the Men's Super Smash saw the game between Canterbury and Auckland scratched for a no result, then yesterday Central Districts Stags grabbed a win over Wellington Firebirds. That was Jeetan Patel, or Lord Jeetz's final game for Wellington and Jeetz bows out sitting 4th in wickets with 5w @ 9.20avg/5.75rpo, as well as a rather crazy general T20 record of 23.93avg/6.98rpo.
Playing 232 T20 games with an average of 23.93 is mental. Straight up.
I won't go too deep into the leading runs-scorers and wicket-takers as we need to let some more games flow through, however I will put a wee spotlight on Tom Bruce. In the win over Wellington, Bruce hit 56 and he is now averaging 47/170.90sr, which is a continuation of Bruce's excellence across all formats.
This is what Bruce has done this summer so far...
Plunket Shield: 167 runs @ 55.66avg, 2 x 50.
Ford Trophy: 208 runs @ 41.60avg/111.22sr, 3 x 50.
Super Smash: 94 runs @ 47avg/170.90sr, 1 x 50.
None of which should be surprising as Bruce is a proven domestic performer across all formats. Having written about the Blackcaps Test team yesterday, pondering the fringe batsmen sniffing around for a call up, I'm fairly comfortable in my belief that Bruce is the best all-round domestic batsman in Aotearoa right now. Obviously there is plenty of competition for that honour, but Bruce is jacking up big numbers in all formats and shouldn't be slept on.
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Peace and love 27.