Domestic Cricket Daily: Spinners and Tweakers
While Aotearoa's young batting prospects dominated the latest round of Plunket Shield cricket, with the ball it was all about the tweakers. There were the best spinners in the Plunket Shield ripping through batting line ups and there were also the more casual spinners - those who roll the arm over at practice after having a batting net and naturally resemble Murali - who chimed in with plenty of wickets.
I'll start in the south, where Otago Volts defeated Central Districts Stags despite the best efforts of Ajaz Patel. Patel was the only bowler from either team to take more than 2 wickets in either innings with 4w in the first innings, of which 3w were in Volts top-five and then 3w in the second dig, all of which sent top-five Volts batsmen back to the sheds.
What's notable here is that Patel wasn't just the only bowler to pile up wickets, he was the only spinner in this game to shine while in the other two games it was all about the spinners. Otago's Michael Rippon and Dean Foxcroft combined for 1w, then Stags leggy Brad Schmulian didn't take a wicket while Patel took his 4-for, Rippon didn't even bowl in the next innings and Foxcroft didn't take a wicket, then it was all Patel in the last innings as the Volts grabbed a win. That amounts to Patel taking 7w, while all other spinners combined to take 1w.
Foxcroft was impressive with the bat, scoring 40 and 51. Foxcroft was also dismissed twice by Patel and I found some funk in these dismissals as the first saw Patel appear to slide a delivery straight into Foxcroft's pads for an lbw, followed by one that gripped and ripped to catch an aggressive outside edge from Foxcroft...
Patel moves to 14w @ 26.07avg/2.82rpo and remember that this comes against the backdrop of Patel earning a return to the Test team that faced India. Those who only concern themselves with the Blackcaps will merely view Patel in that narrative of Aotearoa having crappy spinners because they aren't effective in Test cricket on Mother Aotearoa's soil. I've got Patel and Auckland's Louis Delport fairly even as the best spinners in Plunket Shield, although Patel has seasons stacked up as a dominant force in Plunket Shield and it's low key bonkers how good Patel has been over a long period of time...
2015/16
1st in wickets, 43w @ 33.69avg/3.63rpo.
2016/17
1st in wickets, 44w @ 30.81/3.07rpo.
2017/18
1st in wickets, 48w @ 21.52avg/2.89rpo.
2018/19
20th in wickets, 14w @ 36.64avg/2.49rpo.
2019/20
13th in wickets, 14w @ 26.07avg/2.82rpo.
I've also been following Jacob Duffy and Blair Tickner closely recently and while neither went crazy with wickets, they added to their stacks, further establishing themselves among the best in the Plunket Shield. Duffy took 2w and 0w, which has him tied for wickets with Neil Wagner, although Duffy's got a better average of 22.86 and thus on top of the rankings. Tickner took 1w and 2w, taking him to 5th with 18w @ 25.22avg and these two continue to pivot towards red-ball improvement.
Wellington's win over Auckland was a bit weird, with Auckland getting great service once again from Louis Delport and chip ins from Glenn Phillips. Jeet Raval bowled 4 balls as well, giving Auckland three spinners to work with, while Wellington relied on Michael Bracewell and Rachin Ravindra in conditions that embraced the spinners. Two different ways of going about this with Auckland relying on a frontline spinner and then overs from Phillips, while Wellington didn't play a specialist spinner.
Even Malcolm Nofal - who could be viewed as the best Plunket Shield spinner as his work from the first stanza still stands strong with 15w @ 16.13avg - was cut from the all-rounder cloth. Nofal bowled 73ov in those first three games and Bracewell has bowled 79.1ov, while Ravindra has bowled 40ov in his last two games; Wellington have relied on all-rounders for their spin and haven't really operated with a straight up specialist.
Bracewell took 1w in 3 deliveries after conceding 6 runs in the first innings, then came 5w in the second innings to rip through Auckland's lower order. One could make a hearty case for Bracewell being the best spinner with his 10w @ 22.10avg, which would be fair and I'll be interested in how Bracewell wraps up his Plunket Shield campaign with the ball. While on the topic of Bracewell, he hasn't really been a factor with the bat as he's averaging 26 with two 50+ scores in 10inns.
Delport and Phillips took 4w each for Auckland in their only innings with the ball, spread across the Firebirds batting line up. This haul takes Delport to 17w @ 24.11avg/2.63rpo and Delport joins Nofal in being the only bowlers who have taken 15+ wickets while playing just three games. All of which has me pondering where Will Somerville fits in for the Aces moving forward as his absence opened the door for Delport and right now, Delport has the most wickets of any spinner in the Plunket Shield.
This summer has been low key about that Delport/Somerville situation, along with Phillips expanding his cricketing repetoire. Don't expect Phillips to do any more wicket-keeping, which started with seeing Phillips flying around the field like the most athletic creature in domestic cricket and was then reinforced as his bowling gathered momentum.
Phillips has 5w @ 24.80avg/2.10rpo and while this is the only heavy haul for Phillips in the Plunket Shield, it was only a month ago that he took 3w in the Ford Trophy final. The Colin Maiden pitch in Auckland was definitely favourable to spin, yet Phillips still displayed some wizardry with this delivery drifting in before getting the juice off the pitch to skittle the stumps of Troy Johnson...
Not quite on the Blair Tickner level, but here are Phillips' lovely celebratory moments...
Logan van Beek has been sneaking under the radar recently for Wellington as well, taking 2+ wickets in four straight innings and van Beek has taken a wicket in all five innings bowled of the Plunket Shield second stanza. Van Beek's second stanza: 1w, 3w, 2w, 2w and 3w.
This bumps van Beek up to 4th in wickets with 19w @ 25.63avg/2.91rpo and like Patel, van Beek has generally been pretty good for a while...
2015/16
19th in wickets, 18w @ 26.33vg/2.95rpo.
2016/17
25th in wickets, 12w @ 41.66avg/3.80rpo.
2017/18
2nd in wickets, 40w @ 14.47avg/3rpo.
2018/19
44th in wickets, 4w @ 64.25avg/3.29rpo.
2019/20
4th in wickets, 19w @ 25.63avg/2.91rpo.
Wickets were spread between all bowlers in the Northern Districts Knights win over Canterbury, although the spinners took over in the last two innings. Theo van Woerkom took 4w @ 3.62rpo for Canterbury, then Josef Walker took 5w @ 2.22rpo in the last dig to steer the Knights to victory.
As has been the case for these spinners, van Woerkom's wiggled his way to an impressive 9w @ 22.66avg/3.04rpo in a Canterbury team that has relied heavily on their seamers. Same goes for Walker, who has 10w @ 20.10avg/2.49rpo and these two lads have sat behind Blackcaps spinners Todd Astle (Canterbury), Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi (ND), yet the three Blackcaps spinners all have Plunket Shield averages over 50.
The first two innings of this game saw Will Williams take 4w @ 2rpo for Canterbury, then James Baker took 5w @ 2.21rpo for ND to rep the seamers. The bloke of interest here though, is Neil Wagner as he took 2w and 3w in true gathering fashion and I'm going to finish with a cheeky look at these gatherers, who dabble in big hauls of wickets but steadily take 2-4w.
Here are the top-six bowlers, all of whom are seamers in their ranking order and the number of wickets they have taken in their last three games. All Plunket Shield except for Wagner...
Jacob Duffy (Otago): 2w, 1w, 3w, 4w, 2w, 0w.
Neil Wagner (ND): 1w (FT), 1w, 1w (Test), 2w, 3w.
Willem Ludick (CD): 2w, 2w, 3w, 1w, 0w, 0w.
Logan van Beek (Well): 1w, 3w, 2w, 2w, 3w.
Fraser Sheat (Cant): 2w, 2w, 3w, 2w, 2w, 1w.
Blair Tickner (CD): 4w, 2w, 5w, 0w, 1w, 2w.
Big hauls are cool and catch the eye, the best are consistently snaring a wicket or two.
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Peace and love 27.