Domestic Cricket Daily: Otago Volts vs Canterbury Stuff
Wellington Firebirds snared a win over Central Districts Stags and the other Plunket Shield game wrapped up with a day to spare was Otago Volts defeating Canterbury. Like Firebirds vs Stags, this game had plenty of intriguing performances to dive into and this was another outing in which the beautiful balance between bat and ball was on show. Conveniently, we start with the first innings which saw Otago score 287 runs and that was the only innings in which more than 240 runs was scored.
Just don't rely on the Volts batsmen to do that job and while I've talked numerous times this season about Nick Kelly and Dean Foxcroft showcasing their batting talents, the Volts have relied heavily on Nathan Smith and Michael Rippon for their runs. That's not ideal when Smith and Rippon tend to bat down the order, #7 and #8 in this game, although this does give me a hefty dose of funk to work with.
Smith and Rippon both put up 78, to bolster that first innings total. This puts Smith among the best run-scorers in the Plunket Shield and in 7inns, Smith has a century and this 78, which when mixed in with a not-out, gives Smith an average of 50. Smith's First-Class averages is now 29.92 and if he can bump that up over 30, in conjunction with doing his job as a seamer, Smith will continue to rise through the domestic cricket tiers.
The weird thing here though, is that Smith's batting and bowling work flips around between Ford Trophy and Plunket Shield. Peep the difference between the two formats...
Plunket Shield
Bat: 300 runs @ 50avg/47.84sr.
Ball: 3w @ 80avg/2.78rpo.
Ford Trophy
Bat: 138 runs @ 19.71avg/97.87sr.
Ball: 15w @ 24.13avg/4.93rpo.
Unlike others who may be really good in one format, not so goo in the other, Smith is good in all formats and is obviously a talented cricketer. This is a super weird stat combo because of the difference between his batting and bowling in either format, as well the fact that Smith might not have heaps of Plunket Shield wickets but he's doing a job with economical spells. Flip that around with the batting, where Smith isn't jacking up big runs in the Ford Trophy, yet with a strike-rate of 97.87, Smith appears to be doing his job at a moderate level; scoring 20 runs almost at 100sr is nice for a middle/lower order batsman.
Rippon is perhaps more impressive overall and along with his 78 in the first innings, Rippon took 2w and 1w with the ball. Not huge numbers, but they add to his Plunket Shield campaign this season where Rippon has 12w @ 21.08avg/2.93rpo and 263 runs @ 65.75avg. This puts Rippon in 2nd for Otago's wickets and runs rankings, doing so via two 50+ scores in 5inns and taking wickets in most innings bowled.
There are a bunch of cricketers who have performed strongly across all formats this summer and Rippon's an emphatic presence in that bunch. Rippon took 16w @ 28.13avg/5.42rpo in the Ford Trophy, good enough for the best spinner nod and Rippon chimed in nicely with lower order runs in the FT as well, hitting 189 runs @ 107.38sr.
While Rippon and Smith were on a salvage mission in the first innings, they were fighting off a rampant Matt Henry who took 4w @ 4.67rpo and backed it up with 4w @ 2.80rpo in the next innings. These wickets were standard Henry business; full length, seam both ways and attacking off-stump.
Despite appearing to fall behind former Canterbury comrade Kyle Jamieson, maybe even Lockie Ferguson in the Blackcaps Test group, Henry's still alive and well in the Plunket Shield. Henry has 17w @ 29avg/3.25rpo and this was Henry's first PS outing of 2020, coming after Henry took 7w in three games late last year in the first stanza.
There is this narrative that Henry is out of favour in terms of Blackcaps red ball shenanigans, which is fair given all that's happened in recent months and before I unleash the following, I will point out that Henry's 8w haul in this Plunket Shield game is the type of heart-hauls that Henry has taken in the past.
Henry's last 10 games have been two World Cup games, three Plunket Shield games, two Tests (one vs England, one vs Australia), two Ford Trophy games and one Plunket Shield games. Henry has taken 1+ wicket in all of those games and in those 10 games, Henry has bowled in 14inns, taken 1+ wicket in 13inns. Go a stretch further and Henry is on a 10inns streak of 1+ wickets.
Again, Henry became a Blackcaps factor through a kinda bonkers amount of wickets that fall in the 3-4w per innings bucket. Henry isn't quite in that zone, however the consistency of wickets across numerous formats is impressive and kiwi cricket fans need to know that Henry hasn't fallen of a cricketing cliff. Of course, Henry's best work comes in ODI cricket and he is understandably in the Blackcaps ODI squad to cross the ditch. I'd also throw this out as a basic thought; I'm fairly confident Henry would have done well in the Test series vs India.
Conditions appear to be similar across circuit, other than the northern pockets of Aotearoa being dry (rainy days at the moment) and we saw favourable seam conditions for the Blackcaps in Wellington and Christchurch, along with Wellington vs CD at the Basin Reserve and this game in Invercragill. Henry loves such conditions, as we have also seen when Henry takes big baggies of wickets in England.
I'm not throwing shade at Kyle Jamieson or any other Blackcaps seamer, merely suggesting that if you injected Henry into the Blackcaps Test team that played vs India, it's highly likely he would have taken wickets. Perfect seam/swing conditions and touring sub-continent batsmen smells like a recipe for Henry to take wickets.
Speaking of the fringe-Blackcaps seamer crew, Jacob Duffy continues to demand further attention. Michael Rae took 3w @ 2.54rpo and 4w @ 4.41rpo, fair play to him and Duffy took 3w @ 1.67rpo and 4w @ 2.71rpo. Duffy is now 2nd in Plunket Shield wickets, with 20w @ 18.85avg/3.14rpo and the Volts skipper is crusing after finishing 2nd in Ford Trophy wickets with 21w @ 19.19avg/4.85rpo.
Duffy dabbled in Aotearoa 'A' cricket this summer, not doing anything too crazy. Then came his return to Ford Trophy where he took 3+ wickets in four consecutive games, followed by Plunket Shield hauls of 2w, 1w, 3w and 4w.
This a similar vibe to my Blair Tickner explorations recently, as Tickner's current Plunket Shield work is moving his FC numbers closer to his T20 numbers. Duffy has fantastic List-A and T20 numbers (23.13avg/24avg), with a FC average of 33.56 which is very healthy for someone who has played 60+ games. Here are Duffy's FC bowling season averages since 2015...
2015/16: 46.08avg.
2016/17: 51.33avg.
2017/18: 23.62avg.
2018/19: 46.82avg.
2019/20: 22.46avg.
We want guys like Duffy and Tickner to be sniffing around the Blackcaps Test group, bolstering the bowling depth to freaky levels considering we've recently enjoyed debuts for Ferguson and Jamieson. These are quiet, intriguing signs that this may be the norm for these two moving forward and reason to keep an eye on what they are up to.
Finally, Ken McClure played a lone hand in battling against these eager Volts seamers in the last innings, scoring 98 as Canterbury fell for 240 in pursuit of 302. McClure has only played two games of Plunket Shield this season, with a century and half-century in 3inns, taking him to 263 runs @ 86.33avg/68.51sr. That strike-rate is notable as Devon Conway and Dane Cleaver are the only batsmen who have scored more runs than McClure (13 batsmen, with a higher strike-rate, let alone a strike-rate over 60.
McClure is a 25-year-old, 30 games deep who averages 39.06 with four centuries and seven halfies. That's not too shabby, rather legit in fact.
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