Domestic Cricket Daily: Loving Auckland
Things are pretty sweet when you can welcome in two of the hottest bowlers in Aotearoa for a big ol' final, joining the leading Ford Trophy wicket-taker, a batsman holding on tightly to his Blackcaps mix spot and a younger lad who has flourished with various Aotearoa 'A' squads recently. Auckland Aces were flush, ripe to snare a Ford Trophy championship and unfortunately for their opposition in the Otago Volts, they were left with their crew of domestic troopers to counter the big dawgs.
I'll zone in on Auckland here and then hit Otago and Canterbury tomorrow, this did feel a bit rough on the Volts as the Aces ambushed them. Otago have three bowlers who finished in the top-10 for wickets and their skipper Jacob Duffy finished second to Auckland's Ben Lister via his 4w @ 5.80rpo in the final, to grab 21w @ 19.19/4.85rpo. Lefty-leggy Michael Rippon is next with 16w @ 28.12avg/5.42rpo and then Nathan Smith with 15w @ 24.13avg/4.93rpo; three Volts bowlers who took 13+ wickets and Auckland Aces only had Lister in the top-10.
Similar thing with run-scoring. Colin Munro's century in the final has him 2nd in runs and he is joined by Rob O'Donnell in 8th as the Aces batsmen in the top-10, while Otago had Neil Broom in 4th with 471 runs @ 47.10avg/80.78sr, Dean Foxcroft in 7th with 40 runs @ 50.75avg/87.68sr and Nick Kelly in 9th with 374 runs @ 34avg/90.77sr. All up, the Volts had six lads in the top-10 for wickets and runs, Auckland had three.
That tells the story of a settled Otago outfit who toiled away throughout the Ford Trophy, up against an Auckland team that has a wee bit talent in the upper echelon that was off and on of the domestic cricket train. Craig Cachopa played all 10 round robin games, captaining the team more often than not and although he didn't gather many runs (157 runs @ 15.70avg/64.60sr), Cachopa's absence in the final felt more like a case of squeezing Martin Guptill, Glenn Phillips and Mark Chapman into the Aces batting line up.
Kyle Jamieson and Lockie Ferguson took 2w each, which fitted nicely around Lister going wicket-less in the final. There'll be plenty of talk about Jamieson and Ferguson as they settle on the brink of steady Blackcaps selection, yet I'm tuned into the work of Lister. The lefty backed up his 7w @ 24avg/4.80rpo effort last summer in the Ford Trophy, taking 23w @ 21.78avg/5.60rpo this time around and Lister currently averages 26.50 in List-A cricket after 19 games.
That almost has Lister averaging under 25 in all formats as he averages 22.37 in First Class cricket and 24.38 in T20s. Andrew Ellis is the only bowler to get through more work than Lister in the Ford Trophy and somehow the veteran was the only bowler to bowl 90+ overs (91.5), while Lister got through 89.2. For Lister to churn out 89.2 overs and average 21.78, is rather impressive.
There's another low key funky factor in the Aces bowling group as Will Somerville only played four games and was rather nifty with 8w @ 24.50avg/4.90rpo. Otago's Rippon finished as the best Ford Trophy spinner and his kiwi-African homie Louis Delport was next, as the lefty-tweaker followed Lister's lead in going wicket-less in the final, despite finishing with 11w @ 28.27avg/4.64rpo.
Not a bad haul in your first taste of Fod Trophy cricket, after Delport was called up from his 'Director of Cricket' role with East Coast Bays to be the Aces main spinner. Delport had made his FC debut in South Africa with Western Province, playing alongside Travis Muller who is now part of the Volts set up.
For those wondering, the three of the four best spinners in the Ford Trophy are all kiwi-Africans; Rippon, Delport and Dean Foxcroft. Four of the top-10 batsmen are also kiwi-Africans; Devon Conway, Munro, Chad Bowes and Foxcroft.
Delport's value was seen in the return of Ford Torphy after the Super Smash, in which he took 2+ wickets in five straight games. 14 bowlers took more than 10w in the Ford Trophy and only Wellington seamer Ian McPeake was more economical than Delport's 4.64rpo, plus Delport finished as the only spinner to concede less than 5rpo. This was headlined by Delport going for just 3.28rpo in the final, which can then be viewed as a key role in building pressure for his comrades.
That's a fair replacement for Somerville and with Delport unable to snare a wicket in the final, Glenn Phillips decided he would be the overlord spinner of the final with his first wicket/s of the campaign. Phillips bowled a total of 11 overs in his five games, 8ov came in the final and Phillips is currently averaging 31.75 in List-A cricket. Ultimately, Auckland's two best bowlers didn't take a wicket in the final and it didn't matter all that much as they can lean on Ferguson and Jamieson ... and Phillips.
Colin Munro's 104 @ 173.33sr was his third century of the Ford Trophy and he finishes as the only batsman to pass 100 three times in this campaign. That comes to 8inns and three centuries, an average of 61.50 and the typically bonkers strike-rate of 135.16sr overall, all of which is what we have come to expect from Munro in any domestic format.
While Munro feels like he's on the outer of the Blackcaps ODI team, Mark Chapman's moving in the opposite direction and a match-winning knock in a final appears to stem directly from his explosion of runs for Aotearoa A. Chapman has always been a classy operator, with sneaky power and centuries in a 50-over game vs India A, then a four-dayer in his next outing of that tour saw Chapman called up to the Blackcaps ODI squad.
Like Jamieson, Chapman caught the Blackcaps vibe and came back to be influential with the Aces. Hitting 84*, Chapman controlled the innings for Auckland, while the work of wicket-keeper Ben Horne also caught the eye as he finishes with 281 runs @ 31.22avg/127.22sr via his work as a finisher. Horne wasn't a factor in the Super Smash, before this three-game stretch to start the run into Ford Trophy finals...
vs Canterbury: 101 @ 138.35sr.
vs Northern Districts: 70 @ 152.17sr.
vs Central Districts: 31* @ 155sr.
Then came two games of nada and the clutch knock of 42 @ 135.48sr in the final.
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Peace and love 27.