Domestic Cricket Daily: Super Smash Diaries #3
Super Smash cricket takes a wee break over Christmas and with a bunch of games rained off on the men's side, it feels like we are yet to see the best teams emerge. That's the complete opposite on the women's side, where there aren't any 'no-results' and there are still two teams undefeated in Wellington Blaze and Auckland Hearts.
The Blaze bowlers are leading the way in terms of where my intrigue sits as there are four Wellington bowlers in the top-10 for wickets. Jess Kerr's 3 wickets @ 4rpo in Wellington's win over Otago Sparks on Saturday takes her to the top spot, with 8w @ 8.37avg/4.18rpo and that's put a slither of distance between her and sister Amelia, who has 6w @ 12.50avg/4.68rpo. Deanna Doughty and Sophie Devine are also in the mix, both with 7w. Doughty didn't take any wickets over the weekend, now averaging 11.28/6.49rpo and Devine's 3w @ 5.64rpo takes her to 7w @ 14avg/8.28rpo.
If that's not enough, Leigh Kasperek is chillin' with 5w @ 12.80avg/4.26rpo and Kasperek's second behind Jess Kerr as the most economical bowlers in Women's Super Smash with a bunch of wickets. Only three bowlers have 3+ wickets and concede less than 5rpo; Jess, Amelia and Kasperek.
Thanks to the domination of their bowlers, Wellington haven't been required to score too many runs and of the 12 wahine with 100+ runs, Rachel Priest is the only Blaze batswoman to do so. Priest has 165 runs @ 82.50avg/130.95sr, thanks to her 50* in the win over Otago and other than Caitlin Gurrey (ND) who is still 1st in runs, the rest of the top-tier are the OG veterans.
Auckland's Katie Perkins is the most notable in 3rd, because of the strong form of Auckland Hearts and Perkins has once again established herself as the rock of the Hearts line up. In four games, Perkins has scores of 65, 69*, 28 and 35* coming with a strike-rate of 137.76. Bates (Otago) is 2nd and Frances Mackay (Canterbury) is 4th, although they can't quite lead their respective teams to wins as Otago are 1-4 and Canterbury are 0-4.
Gurrey only put up 12 in her last outing and yet she's still leading all run-scorers, with the highest strike-rate of anyone with 100+ runs. Devine is lurking though, with 178.12sr, however Devine's only got 57 runs to her name and that's a wee bit different to the 279 runs @ 167.06sr of Gurrey.
On the men's side, those no-results have Auckland Aces 0-2-2 and Northern Districts Knights are 1-2-1, holding up the bottom of the Men's Super Smash ladder. It's super cluttered though and I suspect a lot could change very quickly and without going to deep into the insights given the cluttered nature of the ladder, some Knights and Aces may want to perform better if they do want to storm into finals contention.
The Aces line up is bonkers, however Glenn Phillips is the only Aces batsman in the top-10 and even top-15 ... almost top-20 as Martin Guptill is 20th in runs. Some of this awkwardly lines up with the Blackcaps T20I trends I noted around the series vs England as Colin Munro's only scored 31 runs @ 15.50avg/119.23 thus far. Remember that Munro's T20I yearly average is below 30 in 2019, the first time it's been below 30 since 2015 and granted, Auckland have two no-results, yet his slumping T20 trend is generally rolling on.
No Auckland bowler in the top-10 and the only Aces bowler averaging under 25 is Ross ter Braak who made his debut over the weekend with 2w @ 11.50avg/5.75rpo. Ter Braak looks interesting as he showed nice swing and control as a lefty seamer and it will be interesting to see how settles into MSS as batsmen become more familiar with him.
Auckland get solid service out of Ronnel Hira (3w @ 31.33avg/8.54), but I was low key intrigued as to how Will Somerville would bowl with some Big Bash League history. Somerville has 1w @ 95avg/9.5rpo and this is another weird anomaly where frontliners like Munro and Somerville haven't quite enjoyed the start they would want. Keep in mind that all of this can change very quickly as the games stack up post-Christmas.
Northern Districts Knights have a few blokes hunting for a World T20 Blackcaps squad spot and for Daryl Mitchell, everything's honki-dory. Mitchell has 5w @ 14.20avg/10.14rpo as well as 41 runs @ 41avg but the strike-rate here is far more important than runs/average as Mitchell's scored his runs via 151.85sr. Given Mitchell's role in T20 cricket as someone who often bowls at the death and bats when runs are required swiftly, he's doing his job nicely.
Ish Sodhi and Scott Kuggeleijn haven't been able to further their cases after a rather under-whelming series vs England. Sodhi took 3w @ 58.66avg/11.73rpo against England and currently has 4w @ 34avg/8.50rpo, while Kuggeleijn's 0w @ 13.75rpo against England has translated to 4w @ 41.50avg/11.06rpo in MSS.
I'm very interested in those fringe-Blackcaps competing for World T20 spots and someone like Blair Ticker (CD Stags) is boosting his case with 4w @ 18.25avg/9.12rpo. Tickner's Stags comrade Ajaz Patel is also climbing the T20 ranks and considering that many have boxed Patel in as a Test spinner, his 9w @ 7.11avg/5.40rpo aligns strongly with his overall T20 record of 20.42avg/7.80rpo in 40 games.
Tim Seifert's lurking after a 75 on the weekend; 49.50avg/150sr.
Jimmy Neesham deserves some attention also; 45avg/147.54 with the bat and 4w @ 20.75avg/10.37rpo with the ball.
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Peace and love 27.