2020/21 Plunket Shield: First Stanza All Stars
The first stanza of Aotearoa's Plunket Shield is all wrapped up and as we venture into the white ball realm, it's time to lay out a Plunket Shield First Stanza All Stars team. As always when selecting a team like this, it's more about personal vibes than a strict collection of the Plunket Shield's best cricketers and when building a cricket team there's always space for various combinations and composition. For example, I love a bit of spin bowling and have my own factors that differentiate one bloke from another, resulting in this All Star team...
Hamish Rutherford
Devon Conway
Joe Carter
Mark Chapman
Leo Carter
Ben Horne
Kyle Jamieson
Ish Sodhi
Jacob Duffy
Fraser Sheat
Will Williams
Another major note for my team is the opening pair of batsmen, neither of whom opened for their respective teams but have at the very least opened before and have more runs than all the openers in the Plunket Shield thus far. Part of Devon Conway's excellence has been his ability to score runs opening the batting as well as dropping down to #3 as he did this season for Wellington Firebirds, while Hamish Rutherford has also taken on the #4 spot for Otago Volts.
Across the Plunket Shield, many batsmen have registered two 50+ scores and that's a key factor when sussing out my batsmen here. Same goes for lads with one century and in building my All Stars team, I'm more concerned with consistency in scoring runs which puts more weight on numerous decent scores than one big hundy in 6-8 innings. Rutherford and Mark Chapman don't have any hundreds, yet both have three 50+ scores and I view that as being tremendous.
Conway and Northern Districts Knights captain Joe Carter are the only batsmen from the first stanza who have a century with two half-centuries, which while still fitting into the three 50+ score bucket, is obviously a nek level to that note. Conway and Rutherford are the veterans of this batting line up, making it easier to slide them up to open and that allows Carter to stick to his #3 spot where he's performed strongly for the Knights.
I'm also partial to a splash of middle-order oomph and that's in favour of Canterbury's Leo Carter. While Carter has played all four games, he has only batted four times and has scores of 20, 87, 50 and 49 with an overall strike-rate of 75.74. 13 batsmen have scored 200+ runs and Carter is the only bloke with a strike-rate over 70, plus Carter's hit 6 sixes and that's only behind Doug Bracewell's 7 sixes and Glenn Phillips' 9 sixes.
For the giggles, here is how these three lads compare with their career First Class six hitting...
Carter: 0.71 sixes per game.
Bracewell: 0.64 sixes per game.
Phillips: 1.21 sixes per game.
Of course, this is the Plunket Shield and any decent batsman needs to be able to align with the four-day format. While Carter's strike-rate is notably higher the most of the other leading batsmen, it's not reckless and with Auckland's Ben Horne playing as the wicket-keeper, these two will provide this All Stars team with enough grit to save an innings, along with oodles of funk to add to an innings.
Horne has been batting at #7 for Auckland and thanks largely due to a big ol' 162, Horne finishes the first stanza third in total runs. BJ Watling (202 runs) is the only other wicket-keeper with 200+ runs, making this a fairly easy decision to roll with Horne as the wicket-keeper, leading us into the bowling group where I stuck to the four best seamers of the first stanza; Will Williams, Kyle Jamieson, Jacob Duffy and Fraser Sheat.
Daryl Mitchell is doing a fine job in emulating Colin de Grandhomme, so don't sleep on Mitchell possibly getting another crack at Test cricket if de Grandhomme stays injured. Mitchell is a shade behind Sheat, with 17w @ 14.23avg/2.33rpo and as Mitchell and Doug Bracewell have both taken 10+ wickets while also scoring a century, both would be fine options in your All Stars team. I don't have much space for these two all-rounders though as there are bowlers with more wickets and batsmen with more runs. Mitchell and Bracewell deserve a chur.
Spin bowling was barely a thing in the first stanza and while I'm always eager to fit a spinner in, it would have been a different story had Ish Sodhi not chipped away with wickets. The next best spinners after Sodhi are underground king Brad Schmulian (6w @ 33.83avg), Joe Walker (5w @ 54.40avg), Michael Rippon (5w @ 62.50avg) and Will Somerville (4w @ 56.25avg).
Of the 15 bowlers who have 10+ wickets, only Sean Solia has bowled fewer deliveries than Sodhi. Solia has 12w in 50.5 overs and Sodhi has 10w in 75.4 overs, while no other bowler has 10+ wickets in less that 80 overs. Similar to the big hundy vs numerous 50+ scores stuff with the batsmen, I'm far more interested in how bowlers spread their wickets across a season or stanza and less interested in big 5-wicket-baggies. Sodhi's bowled in 5inns and has a wicket in 4inns, with 2+ wickets in 3inns.
While there isn't much competition in the spin department after the first stanza, I'm comfortable selecting Sodhi over a seamer or all-rounder because of the spin funk and also because Sodhi can grabbed wickets in different conditions/game scenarios. Jamieson's the big 5-for donnie in the seam department as he has three baggies, although I'm far more intrigued by Jamieson taking 2+ wickets in all 5inns bowled.
Will Williams only has one baggy, although he has taken wickets in all 8inns bowled.
Jacob Duffy doesn't have any baggies, although he has wickets in all 6inns bowled and he has 4+ wickets in 3inns. 5-fors are nice and all that, but I'd much rather have blokes taking wickets every time they bowl without the headline grabbing 5-for.
Fraser Sheat's got two baggies, along with wickets in 5 of 6inns bowled.
Across these five bowlers (seamers + Sodhi), they have bowled in 30inns and there have only been two innings with no wickets out of their combined 30inns.
Hamish Rutherford
8inns, 251 runs @ 31.37avg/50.60sr, 3 x 50.
Devon Conway
7inns, 410 runs @ 58.57avg/47.39sr, 1 x 100, 2 x 50.
Joe Carter
7inns, 345 runs @ 57.50avg/48.93sr, 1 x 100, 2 x 50.
Mark Chapman
5inns, 218 runs @ 43.60avg/47.49sr, 3 x 50.
Leo Carter
4inns, 206 runs @ 51.50avg/75.73sr, 2 x 50.
Ben Horne
5inns, 273 runs @ 68.25avg/50.09sr, 1 x 100, 1 x 50.
Kyle Jamieson
86.5ov, 20w @ 10.85avg/2.49rpo.
Ish Sodhi
75.4ov, 10w @ 25.60avg/3.38rpo.
Will Williams
127.5ov, @ 21w @ 13.28avg/2.18rpo.
Fraser Sheat
87.3ov, 18w @ 13.16avg/2.70rpo.
Jacob Duffy
133.5ov, 19w @ 19.26avg/2.73rpo.
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Peace and love.