2020/21 Plunket Shield: Opening Openers (Round Tahi)
Wrapping up round tahi of Aotearoa's Plunket Shield we've got a few runs for Tom Latham, Sean Solia's all-round skills and all the antics from a Northern Districts Knights vs Central Districts Stags game that was split in half. The Stags and Knights both gave up an innings to make a contest of their encounter in Hamilton and after the Knights openers both passed 50, the Stags openers both neared the century mark to set up a win for the Stags.
Henry Cooper and Jeet Raval got things flowing for the Knights. Of course, Raval's knock of 68 is going to grab the attention as he seems rather eager to fight for his Blackcaps opening gig and there is now an on-going narrative of Raval and Wellington's new opener Tom Blundell sparking up a low key battle in these first few rounds of Plunket Shield cricket. I'm far more intrigued by Cooper' 58 though and Cooper is simply picking up where he left off earlier this year.
With a First Class career average of 39.54 after 26 games, Cooper has one of the better FC records of the younger openers and for context; Rachin Ravindra averages 37 after 18 games. Everyone's chatting about Ravindra, although Cooper has done similar stuff and deserves to be viewed alongside Ravindra in that young opener bracket. In Cooper's last two Plunket Shield games of last season, he scored back to back centuries and that now has Cooper in a three-game streak of 50+ scores.
The Knights have a stacked bowling unit, keep an eye on this opening combo though as Raval is there trying to get back in the Blackcaps Battler mix and Cooper is on the rise to that level. Speaking of that Knights bowling attack, Ish Sodhi was replaced during the game and the Knights still had Tim Southee, Neil Wagner, Colin de Grandhomme and Scott Kuggeleijn in their stable. Wagner was literally the only bowler to take a wicket, not just of that Blackcaps group but the whole Knights bowling attack. Wagner finished with 3w @ 3.82rpo, while all the Knights bowlers conceded more than 3rpo.
Stags openers George Worker and Greg Hay scored 96 and 93 respectively, coming from vastly different finishes to last season. Hay scored five consecutive 50+ scores in the last three games of last season, while Worker had five scores under 20 and a knock of 35 in his last three games. Hay is casually strolling around Aotearoa with a FC average of 43.55 and this presents a weird ol' scenario where Hay's moving further away from a crack at higher level while scoring more runs than everyone else.
That's rough on Hay and realistically, Hay will struggle to be promoted ahead of Raval, Blundell, Tom Latham and the younger pair of Ravindra and Cooper. Especially when they are all scoring enough runs and this first round of Plunket Shield cricket saw five opening batsmen score 50+.
One was Latham, who hit 86 for Canterbury as they chased down Wellington's target for a first up win. Latham cracked two sixes off Ravindra's bowling and Ravindra then snared Latham's wicket, while Latham's first innings looked like how we all look in our first innings of the summer...
Nothing crazy here, just some scene setting as 2020 is the first year for Latham averaging less than 40 in Test cricket since 2016. Latham averaged 45.70 in 2017, 59.81 in 2018, 50.08 in 2019 and despite scoring two half-centuries in the same Test earlier this year, Latham's 2020 average is 34.40. Fairly solid baseline/minimum for Latham huh?
Finally we have Sean Solia, another opening batsman. I chucked up Solia's name as a point of intrigue earlier in the week as the Samoan international has gone through various different roles for the Aces since making his debut back in 2016 - Solia batted #4 and #3, bowling 19 overs in his debut game. Opening the batting is a tricky task, especially in October/November and Solia has found pockets of big runs in Plunket Shield and Ford Trophy, so I'm eager to see how Solia settles into this role over the course of the summer.
That's going to be a bit easier if Solia's taking wickets. Solia took 5w @ 1.41rpo in just 5.4ov to ensure an Auckland win over Otago and while Kyle Jamieson's 3w @ 0.75rpo was more notable as he dismissed three of Otago's top-five batsmen, the whole Solia package is funky. Solia did dismiss Otago's opener Anaru Kitchen and Nick Kelly batting #6 before steaming through the lower order.
Solia nipped a few back into righties for two lbw, while also catching the outside edge of two righties. That's movement both ways and Solia looks to be the type of bowler who surprises batsmen as everything's fairly mellow, smooth in the run up before loading up. Solia is currently averaging 30.37 with the bat in FC cricket and 28.73 with the ball and that's the above 30/below 30 split I use to gauge all-rounders. Obviously Solia is right on the 30avg bubble and how he moves forward from here will be a funky little tale in the context of all-round contributions.
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Peace and love.