Aotearoa's State of Spin: Wellington Firebirds, Canterbury and Otago Volts
Within Auckland Aces, Northern Districts Knights and Central Districts Stags sit the best spinners in Aotearoa and that doesn't leave much space for new growth. As I explored in the first stage of this attempt to suss Aotearoa's spin situation, those three teams don't quite have the funk or intrigue of exciting spinners and that is balanced out by reflecting the work-man nature of Aotearoa's spinners.
Slide a bit further south and while there is still a lack of a spinner, or spinners to genuinely tickle the tastebuds of kiwi cricket fans, in the Wellington Firebirds, Canterbury and Otago Volts group there are at least drips of funk. It's weird though as those bits and pieces of funk stem from younger part-timers, batsmen who are settling into all-rounder roles and at the same time, with the three/four main Blackcaps spinners in the first group of teams, there aren't too many top-tier spinners dominating in the second group.
Wellington Firebirds are perhaps the most interesting case as the retirement of Jeetan Patel mid-season, having already tapered off his cricketing duties in Aotearoa, saw the Firebirds lean on the all-rounders for their spin overs. The Firebirds were also impacted by the departure of Malcolm Nofal, who appears to have returned to South Africa where he's grabbed a contract with Easterns.
Nofal was more influential than Patel last summer, with 5w @ 36.60avg in the Ford Trophy before his departure and 15w @ 16.13avg in the Plunket Shield. Nofal only played three games of Plunket Shield and his 15w held up strongly for the rest of the season as Nofal finished ranked 12th in total wickets, second only to Auckland's Louis Delport in the spinner gang. With no Patel or Nofal, Wellington turned to Rachin Ravindra and Michael Bracewell for their overs of spin.
Bracewell finished as the most effective of the two, headlined by his 10w @ 22.10avg in the Plunket Shield and a steady 5w @ 32.20avg in the Ford Trophy. With a First-Class bowling average of 29.10, Bracewell's a low key trooper of the domestic circuit and if he could catch fire with the bat then there would be some interesting noise about higher honours. While Bracewell lacks the runs to go with his wickets, Ravindra is the hottest prospect in Aotearoa and his stack of runs doesn't quite come with the wickets to really command attention in this category.
Ravindra was a non-factor with the ball in the Plunket Shield and was steady in the Ford Trophy with 4w @ 38.50avg, which comes with inflated career averages as a bowler. As far as run-scoring goes, Ravindra's a beast and the hype around Devon Conway has another layer of nuance as one could be just as intrigued by Conway's future as they are about Ravindra's. I'm all about spin here though and moving forward, Wellington will likely settle on one front-line spinner and this could be influence by the spin development of Ravindra and/or Bracewell.
Wellington feel like the most interesting spin-team because of their lack of a straight up spinner for much of this season. In pondering the state of spin in Aotearoa, Wellington are the likeliest team to provide a fresh spinner next season and beyond, alternatively Wellington could continue to rely on these all-rounders and that could boost their development.
Todd Astle stepping aside for Canterbury allows Theo van Woerkom more opportunities moving forward. Van Woerkom's best work came in the Plunket Shield where he took 9w @ 22.66avg and he has a healthy FC average of 34.89 to start his career, which has been heavily impacted by the availability of Astle as well as lads like Cole McConchie and Blake Coburn.
McConchie didn't play much Ford Trophy or Plunket Shield this summer, but is a leader for Canterbury as a batting all-rounder. Coburn's waiting for further opportunities and this leaves van Woerkom as the bloke to keep a close eye on moving forward, especially as he joins Northern Districts' Josef Walker as being one of the few up and coming pure spinners. The lefty van Woerkom will ideally benefit from consistent game time, a luxury that Walker is unlikely to enjoy as the Blackcaps roll in and out of the Knights line up.
Further south with Otago Volts and we have a contender for most slept on cricketer in Aotearoa as Michael Rippon was a dominant force via his lefty-leggies last summer. Rippon took 12w @ 23.33avg in the Plunket Shield and 16w @ 28.12avg in the Ford Trophy, while also scoring plenty of runs for the Volts down the order. From South Africa, Rippon last represented Netherlands in 2018 and has played a bunch of ODIs and T20Is for the Dutch; who knows what Rippon's eligibility intentions are etc.
Across the five formats Rippon plays (all but Tests), the only format in which Rippon averages 30+ with the ball is First-Class (33.07avg). Other than that, Rippon averages under 30 in all his white-ball antics and another strong season or two will see many more people pay attention to what Rippon is up to with the Volts. As Rippon's proven himself to be highly effective as a spinner, with low key batting prowess, there doesn't appear to be much of an opening for youngins to creep in to the Volts team in the near future.
The Volts are likely to instead push Dean Foxcroft in to more overs, with Foxcroft taking 10w @ 41.80avg in the Ford Trophy and 9w @ 26.11avg in the Plunket Shield via his offies. Foxcroft sits in that group of young-ish batsmen who also bowl a bit and with Anaru Kitchen offering further spin reinforcements, Otago are well prepared for spinning decks. Future involvement of Mark Craig may play a role here as Craig hasn't been sighted since late 2018 and who knows whether offie Craig will make a return.
Everything is fairly volatile in this second group of teams, obviously impacted by the lack of top-tier Blackcaps spinners but also all three of these teams have spinners who could take their respective careers in any direction. Wellington may or may not unleash a new spinner, as well as uncertainty around what Ravindra might become as a spinner. Canterbury have a good prospect in van Woerkom who needs to rack up overs and settle into his career, then Otago have arguably the hottest spinner in Aotearoa from last season in Rippon who will be eager to back that up next summer. Chuck in some part-timers and while Wellington, Canterbury and Otago may not be contributing at the highest level right now, these three teams have far more intriguing futures ahead than those teams further north.
One final idea for everyone to ponder, is how young kiwi spinners are developed. Every pocket of cricket in Aotearoa has been impacted by a South African/African coming to Aotearoa to play cricket and while everyone knows about the big donnies like Colin Munro, Neil Wagner and Colin de Grandhomme, or even Mr Conway, what has crept under the radar is the fact that most of these spinners are African-kiwis.
Louis Delport, Malcolm Nofal, Michael Rippon and Dean Foxcroft have all had various levels of success with the ball in Aotearoa since moving here. Someone like Brad Schmulian (CD) came to Auckland at a younger age, so for the purpose of this argument I'm sticking with those who came to Aotearoa having done their development in South Africa. While the Blackcaps spinners Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi and Ajaz Patel were all developed in Aotearoa, the domestic circuit doesn't quite reflect that and the likes of Delport and Rippon especially, have highlighted the lack of pure spin talent developed in Aotearoa coming through.
That's merely an observation, neither good nor bad. I would suggest though that considering how the Test careers of Santner and Sodhi have fizzled, along with a lack of genuine exciting spin prospects in Aotearoa, I wonder about the systems NZC has in place to breed legit young spinners. Spin has always been effective in Aotearoa and while everyone knows about the seam vs spin stats for the Blackcaps, this overlooks how effective Delport and Rippon have been in a short space of time.
Ajaz Patel earned his Blackcaps promotion through big wickets over a very long period of time and I suspect Patel worked on his craft alone, with the Stags outside of the NZC bubble prior to being called up to the Blackcaps. Years of work, perfecting his craft has seen Patel become the Test spinner right now. Like Patel, the African-kiwi spinners have been effective, while those spinners who were anointed by NZC have fallen away and on top of that, there's not much funk coming through. Just a thought.
Peace and love 27.