As Aotearoa's Test squad were in control at the Basin Reserve, a bunch of relevant Blackcaps were dabbling in Plunket Shield antics. I went down this route in exploring the runs from Martin Guptill and Glenn Phillips on the first day of Auckland's draw with Otago, also touching on prospects like Rachin Ravindra and Will Young. I'll dive deeper into those ideas and zone in on other Blackcaps lads who are on the fringes of the Test team in some capacity.

Runs from Guptill, Phillips and Ken McClure.

Big boy runs from Dane Cleaver and Leo Carter, plus Louis Delport's spin.

There was a low key delightful moment in the Northern Districs Knights' loss to Central Districts Stags as Mitchell Santner grabbed his best First Class haul with 4/111 @ 2.48rpo; the bro still doesn't have a FC 5-for. This was a marathon stint for Santner given that no other Knights bowler got through more than 28 overs and Santner bowled 44.5ov and even though this was in the same innings as Cleaver going nutty in hitting 18 fours and 8 sixes, none of this really impacted the work of Santner.

Ish Sodhi also grabbed 2w @ 3.57rpo, although both were lower order wickets and only 1w of the Stags top-five fell to spin (Sodhi/Santner). For Sodhi, this game was all about his runs and with scores of 48 and 57, Sodhi took his half-century tally (FC) to 11 and his FC average to 22.29. Here's Sodhi's FC batting record compared to Santner's...

Sodhi: 22.29avg, 11 x 50.

Santner: 29.54avg, 3 x 100, 12 x 50.

Here are their bowling numbers from two Plunket Shield games this season...

Sodhi: 35ov, 2w @ 62avg/3.54rpo.

Santner: 62.5ov, 5w @ 41.40avg/3.29rpo.

For those wondering, Santner batted #5 in both innings with scores of 13 and 14. In both instances Santner hit the ball in the air, to a fielder in the circle.

Blair Tickner was also a low key nifty performer in this game, taking 4w @ 2.95rpo on the first day and then 2w @ 2.81rpo in the second dig. Three of the Knights top-four were sent packing by Tickner in the space of five overs and then Tickner came back around later in the innings to dismiss Bharat Popli (62) to give Tickner all four wickets of the Knights top-order. Check this run of three dismissals for Tickner, taking the outside edge of Tim Seifert then Henry Cooper before nipping one back into Joe Carter for an lbw...

Currently sitting on 10w @ 22.20avg/2.78rpo, Tickner is ranked 7th and there's a reason why we have only seen Tickner in T20I cricket as Tickner's averaging 39.15 in FC and 38.34 in List-A compared to 20.22 in T20 cricket. This season's been a wee bit different for Tickner though and he'll be out to build on this, especially given there is brewing competition for fringe Test bowling spots.

Here's how some realistic seam prospects/Blackcaps have performed in the Plunket Shield this season...

Neil Wagner: 120.4ov, 17w @ 24.11avg/3.39rpo.

Jacob Duffy: 85ov, 13w @ 23.15avg/3.54rpo.

Blair Tickner: 79.4ov, 10w @ 22.20avg/2.78rpo.

Lockie Ferguson: 52.3ov, 8w @ 17.62avg/2.68rpo.

Kyle Jamieson: 35ov, 4w @ 28.75avg/3.28rpo.

Will Young bagged scores of 68 and 17* in his return to Plunket Shield and as far as Blackcaps batting prospects go, I've got Young pegged in with Rachin Ravindra and Glenn Phillips. Of course, Devon Conway's leading all run-scorers across every format and I kinda view Conway as already being in the Blackcaps (weird, but just makes this easier). With all three of these lads scoring runs in the recent round, here are how their work stacks up this season with their career FC average...

Glenn Phillips: 5inns, 221 runs @ 44.20avg, 1 x 100, 1 x 50 | 42.58avg.

Rachin Ravindra: 6inns, 220 runs @ 44avg, 2 x 50 | 33.63avg.

Will Young: 2inns, 85 runs @ 85avg, 1 x 50 | 42avg.

Jeet Raval scored 66 for Auckland in the second innings vs Otago, his first 50+ score of the Plunket Shield and taking him to 114 runs @ 22.80avg. While Raval did well to score these runs when no other Auckland batsman passed 35 and thus offering some hope that Raval can pile up runs, the first innings was reason for further intrigue as Raval was dismissed in similar fashion to what I explored back in early December.

Mathew Bacon moved this delivery into the lefty Raval and there was minimal footwork from Raval, playing around what ended up being a straight delivery. When rolling through Raval's dismissals of his slump prior to the tour of Australia, Raval was being troubled by domestic bowlers bowling straight and that's not really, like, good.

PATREON

Peace and love 27.