Domestic Cricket Daily: Super Smash #5
Men's and women's Super Smash teams should be paying attention to whatever their Wellington adversaries are up to as both Wellington teams (Firebirds and Blaze) are sitting on top of their respective ladders. The Blaze are undefeated, 8-0 and appears to be a fair way ahead of their competition while the Firebirds are 5-2 sit a win ahead of Otago Volts who are continuing a cheeky resurgent run through the Super Smash.
Everything is fairly simple on the women's side considering that the Blaze have five of the seven bowlers who have taken 11+ wickets. The top-four bowlers are all from Wellington with Jess Kerr, Sophie Devine, Deanna Doughty and Amelia Kerr all taking 12+ wickets with averages under 20 as well as economy rates under 7rpo. Leigh Kasperek also has 11w with the same average/rpo split, all of which gives Wellington five bowlers who are average under 20 with crisp economy rates.
When bowling first, Wellington obviously do pretty well with a stacked bowling unit and they bowled first in three of their first four games. Wellington's next four games though saw them bat first in three of the four games and this has allowed their batting prowess to shine, scoring 170/5, 201/5 and 183/4 when batting first in this recent stretch.
This largely stems from Devine's start to 2020 via scores of 112 and 87* in the last two games, coinciding with another White Ferns veteran Rachel Priest racking up scores of 26 and 49. The supporting cast as been chiming in with standard T20 contributions with Maddy Green, Amelia Kerr, Kasperek and Thamsyn Newton all chilling with strike-rates over 100, ensuring that while they might not add a big dose of runs, whatever runs they contribute are beneficial.
Two quick funky notes...
Rachel Priest last played for Aotearoa early in 2017 for T20I and mid-way through 2017 for ODI, which pushed her into the T20 travelers crew. I don't see any reason why Priest shouldn't be in the White Ferns and while I do not believe the two are directly related, Priest's absence was around the same time when the Ferns started to struggle a wee bit more.
There has been a younger tinge to the White Ferns recently and there are definitely younger players working their way into the mix (Otago's Eden Carson is the latest). Right now though, I reckon the White Ferns 1st 11 in all formats should have a more experienced look to it as the best players tend to be established international cricketers at the moment.
All that to say that Priest is doing what she needs to do to wiggle back into White Ferns activities. Priest is second in runs behind Devine, for the best team and while she may lack the numerous big scores, Priest has scored 30+ in five of her eight innings or 20+ in six of her eight innings. When someone's scoring 20-odd with a strike-rate of 134.29 more often than not, the innings will be moving in the right direction.
Next, we have Caitlin Gurrey who continues to dominate. Unfortunately for Gurrey's Northern Districts Spirit, Gurrey is a bit of a lone trooper with ND 2-6. Sitting behind Bates in total runs, the next best batswoman for the Spirit is Bernadine Bezuidenhout in 11th and the Spirit only have three batters in the group of 22 who have scored 100+ runs. The Spirit also have one bowler in the group of 17 bowlers who have taken 7+ wickets.
Remember that last season, Gurrey finished 2nd in Super Smash runs with 298 runs @ 42.57avg/121.13sr. That's two seasons in a row where Gurrey has dominated and at this point, Gurrey is the White Ferns prospect I'm most intrigued about and I suspect we may see her add to her two T20I caps from last summer. I'll keep things simple for the lads and continue on the theme of seeing what those in the Blackcaps T20I mix have been up to...
Bowlers
Ajaz Patel: 27.5ov, 14w @ 13.35avg/6.71rpo.
Daryl Mitchell: 14ov, 9w @ 15.77avg/10.14rpo.
Jimmy Neesham: 16.1ov, 8w @ 17.25avg/8.53rpo.
Ish Sodhi: 30.5ov, 7w @ 33.85avg/7.68rpo.
Blair Tickner: 23ov, 7w @ 35.28avg/10.73rpo.
Scott Kuggeleijn: 31ov, 6w @ 52.16avg/10.09rpo.
Seth Rance: 16ov, 3w @ 54.33avg/10.18rpo.
Batsmen
Tim Seifert: 6inns, 292 runs @ 48.66avg/151.29sr.
Devon Conway: 7inns, 273 runs @ 54.60avg/138.57sr.
Martin Guptull: 6inns, 248 runs @ 49.60avg/155sr.
Tom Bruce: 8inns, 241 runs @ 30.12avg/138.50sr.
George Worker: 8inns, 228 runs @ 28.50avg/149.01sr.
Jimmy Neesham: 7inns, 200 runs @ 51.75avg/131.84sr.
Hamish Rutherford: 7inns, 199 runs @ 28.42avg/189.52sr.
Colin Munro: 6inns, 140 runs @ 23.33avg/135.92sr.
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Peace and love 27.