Domestic Cricket Daily: Wellington Firebirds Did The Super Smash Thing
Like their Blaze wahine, Wellington Firebirds are Super Smash champions and as has been the case for the past few seasons, Hamish Bennett and Devon Conway swept through the Super Smash like a saviour sussing things out. While Bennett and Conway did finish 1st in wickets and runs respectively, there was a lovely Firebirds vibe in the final that helped me understand why the Firebirds were the best team as they enjoyed numerous timely contributions throughout their playing 11.
This idea definitely isn't being thrown out there by me to downplay what Bennett and Conway have done. Bennett continues to enjoy the latter stage of his career in similar fashion to Ross Taylor and his call up to the Blackcaps T20I squad is a nice offering for Bennett, even though Bennett's productivity has dropped off considerably this summer; Bennett's played one of five possible Ford Trophy games and one of three possible Plunket Shield games.
With 17w @ 17.17avg/7.20rpo, Bennett pipped Ollie Newton in the wicket-taking rankings as Newton was just as handy as Bennett (16w @ 21.25avg/8.29rpo).
Conway has passed boiling point and is simmering away, as he doubles down on his standing as Aotearoa's best domestic batsman. Hitting 543 uns @ 67.87avg/145.18sr, Conway has now done the run-whacking Super Smash double in leading all run-scorers for the last two Super Smash campaigns...
2018/19: 9inns, 363 runs @ 45.37avg/144.04sr.
2019/20: 11inns, 543 runs @ 67.87avg/145.18sr.
Remember that at the end of last summer, I dubbed Conway as Aotearoa's best domestic batsman based on his quality across all three formats. As kiwi cricket fans, we have to mentally (and physically?) prepare for repeat of this - which would be absolutely bonkers - considering that Conway has already backed up in the Super Smash, currently sits 1st in Plunket Shield runs (562 runs @ 140.50avg/76.67sr) and while he's ranked 15th in Ford Trophy runs, Conway still has an impressive record of 186 runs @ 37.20avg/83.40sr.
Bennett and Conway are obviously key factors in Wellington's championship run, closely followed by Newton. Bennett and Newton bowled a sniff over 40 overs each, and received nice support from Logan van Beek (39.4ov total) who snared two emphatic grabs in the final to go with his 3w @ 7rpo with his seamers. Van Beek flipped the game in Wellington's favour by ripping through the Aces middle order; Craig Cachopa gone in 14.3ov, Rob O'Donnell in 14.5ov and Roneel Hira in 16.2ov.
Jimmy Neesham only got through a total of 20.1ov and took 9w @ 19avg/8.47rpo. Factor in Bennett and Newton leading the wicket-takers, timely input from van Beek and then you have Neesham taking a wicket in all but 1 of his 8inns bowled. The Firebirds could bank on Neesham grabbing a wicket somewhere and that's damn nifty when Neesham's also hitting 229 runs @ 45.80avg/134.70sr.
I gotta put a focus on the Firebirds tweakers, because they may have had the niggliest spin situation of all the Super Smash teams. Jeetan Patel played two games before continuing on his coaching journey (5w @ 9.20avg/5.75rpo) and the Firebirds were also without Malcolm Nofal in the climax of the tournament with Nofal taking 3w @ 24avg/8rpo in his 9ov bowled.
Most domestic teams would appreciate having cricketers like Patel and Nofal in their T20 teams, while the Firebirds just kept in moving with Rachin Ravindra, Michael Bracewell and Peter Younghusband. Ravindra's work was most intriguing as he's clearly an extremely slick batsman, who also operated as the Firebirds main spinner with 36ov bowled. No other Firebirds spinner bowled more than 10ov (Younghusband's leggies got through 10ov exactly) and while Ravindra wasn't amazing with the ball (36avg/8rpo), the youngster did his job in a championship team.
Ravindra didn't go large with the bat either with just 186 runs @ 20.66avg, however any runs he scored were whacked @ 144.18sr. When you have Conway hitting 50+ in 6 of 11inns, other batsmen just need to chime in with high strike-rates to build around Conway and that's especially the case for Ravindra as he batted in the top-three alongside Conway and Michael Pollard.
Pollard who finished 8th in runs, with 291 runs @ 29.10avg/130.49sr. Pollard's not a star, Ravindra's a young lad trying to tap into his potential while Bennett and Newton are about as domestic-battler-ish as they come. I'd suggest that Conway - as Aotearoa's best domestic batsman - is a star and Neesham's a star player, which when you consider some of the 'star power' in other teams, had the Firebirds relying on their entire roster to chime in when required.
Auckland Aces had a fair amount of star power and that's going to be best out-lined in my Blackcaps T20I thing that will be posted today. I've got one wee note on the Aces and maybe I'll be one of the few who found Corey Anderson's absence in the climax stage of the tournament rather fascinating as Anderson made way for O'Donnell in the Aces line up.
Anderson hit 129 runs @ 21.50avg/120.56sr and played his last Super Smash game on January 10th, after stringing together the best run of his campaign with three 20+ scores in a row. O'Donnell played one of his four games on January 4th and then came in for the last three games from January 12th onwards with a small sample size of 37 runs in 4inns @ 18.50avg/160.86sr.
Ponder for a second that O'Donnell finished with a strike-rate of 160, while Anderson finished with a strike-rate of 120. This presents a interesting juncture in Anderson's career as he hasn't played any other formats in domestic cricket this summer, popping in to dabble in Super Smash and then being dropped for the most important games. I don't know what it all means, just bloody interesting.
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Peace and love 27.