Coming into the 2020 Caribbean Premier League, I was fairly confident that Colin Munro and Glenn Phillips would be notable factors given their specific CPL experience. Two blokes who love to whack a cricket ball and have been among the best CPL run-scorers multiple times before, then out of no where Aotearoa has Scott Kuggeleijn kicking back as the leading wicket-taker and nothing about first four games felt predictable.

Kuggeleijn has 10w @ 12.70avg/8.37rpo and he's not only the leading wicket-taker, Kuggeleijn is the only bowler who has taken more than 8w and he is the only seamer with more than 6w. Working in Kuggeleijn's favour is that his St Lucia outfit and Ross Taylor's Guyana are the only teams who have played four games, while the other four teams have played three games.

Not many folks would have predicted a Kuggeleijn extravaganza and he is doing it his way with his standard heavy-ball style, along with variations sprinkled on top. That's got me pondering how Kuggeleijn rolls through the rest of CPL as he is not a regular righty-seamer and instead has an awkward style of bowling to face that many of these CPL batsman may not have seen in the flesh before. As batsmen started to expect that heavy-ball rising up near their throat and have better preparation for those variations, we will have a better gauge of how Kuggeleijn is tracking.

Kuggeleijn is the most expensive bowler in the top-five for wickets, countered by his wicket-taking consistency; 1w, 2w, 4w, 3w.

The next best kiwi bowler is Barbados' Mitchell Santner, who was unable to add to his 2w from the first two games. Santner's last outing was against the rather epic batting line up of Trinbago and his 1ov went for 19 runs, taking Santner to 2w @ 18.50avg/7.40rpo.

Part of Trinbago's epic batting line up is Colin Munro, who has settled in at #3 to allow Lendl Simmons and Sunial Narine to open, while Darren Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Tim Seifert and Dwayne Bravo sit in the middle order. Who has the most runs of that line up? Mr Munro.

Munro now has scores of 17, 49* and 50 - the 50 came against Barbados.

Watching Munro build his innings can either be incredibly awkward, or super crafty depending on your vibe that day. Soaking up plenty of deliveries at the start of his innings, Munro has then been able to pounce and finish with a high strike-rate, off the top of my noggin' I've got memories of Munro doing the same for the Blackcaps; he either gets too stuck, or he makes those dot balls up with ease.

Munro is currently doing the make it up with ease thing as his innings strike-rates end up like this:

Game tahi: 242.85sr. Game rua: 106.52sr. Game toru: 166.66sr.

Overall, Munro is striking @ 139.75 and it's worth noting that only one batsman (WI captain Jason Holder) in the top-10 for runs, has a strike-rate over 150. However it's happening, Munro is 3rd in runs and is so far the best batsman in a line up full of internationals/T20 slingers, which has resulted in Tim Seifert batting once in three games. Chur Timmy...

Trinbago are 3-0, cruising in 1st.

Glenn Phillips grabbed a duck in his last game for Jamaica, all good considering he started with knocks of 44 and 58. Ranked 5th in runs, Phillips has an overall strike-rate of 130.76 and for context within the Jamaican rastas, the next best batsman is Andre Russell and is strike-rate is a mere 116.25.

There's a long list of similarities between Munro and Phillips. Starting with their South African heritage, coming up through Auckland club Howick Pakuranga alongside Colin de Grandhomme and their unique hitting style that is far from textbook but does allow them to whack boundaries all around the park. One difference though, is where they are at in their careers and while Munro can be a Blackcaps as long as he's scoring runs/wants to be locked in with the Blackcaps and not be free like a bird, Phillips is trying to get into various Blackcaps 1st 11s.

I raise that idea because that's why Phillips is the most interesting player in this group. I've long documented his strong work across all formats in domestic cricket, which led to a Test debut last summer and if you're looking for a player to follow closely (high upside, biggest Blackcaps ramifications etc) in this Kiwi-CPL group, Phillips is the bro.

Not much doing with Ross Taylor; 33, 9, 21 and 1.

Guyana are 2-2, 3rd on the ladder and they have the leading run-scorer in Shimron Hetmeyer who has the most runs and a strike-rate of exactly 150 (Holder's way up on 186.79). I celebrate Taylor's T20 craft as I reckon it is the most slept on cricketing thing in Aotearoa, yet Taylor's overall strike-rate of 84.21 is the lowest of the 23 batsmen who have scored 50+ runs.

No reason for concern as it's matua Ross. Like Munro, Taylor takes his time to set up his T20 innings and at the moment he's getting caught in that awkward phase where the dot-balls are stacking, then Taylor's gone. It looks a lot better when a batsman gets through that phase to pounce on the earlier grit, right now Taylor can't and while Guyana are solid, their nek level involves Taylor getting his strike-rate well over 100sr.

Santner's Barbados team are 1-2, 5th on the ladder and right now it is Santner's Barbados team as Corey Anderson has scores of 0, 2, 2.

Ish Sodhi and Nick Kelly are 0-3 with St Kitts & Nevis, the only team without a win and the funk here is that they are yet to play Trinbago who are the only team without a loss. Kelly has played one of the three games, filling in at #3 for Joshua da Siliva and while da Silva grabbed a 41* in the first game, the third game saw him score 1 and like Kelly, da Silva is a young West Indian batsman looking to settle.

Sodhi has 1w in 11ov @ 99avg/9rpo and that is unfortunately in the unfortunate Corey Anderson territory of Blackcaps CPL production.

It's not just Sodhi who is an international T20 slinger struggling with St Kitts and Nevis as Aussie Chris Lynn has 49 runs @ 16.33avg/116.66sr. Lynn's a notable T20 batsman while fellow Aussie Ben Dunk and long-time WI international Dinesh Ramdin aren't quite as notable, yet they are also struggling and that's three senior batsmen doing very little run-scoring, along with the international leggy not quite at his best. Hence St Kitts & Nevis are 0-3 and the longer any team's CPL woes stretch, it's going to be interesting to see how engagement levels look later on.

More woes, could however provide opportunity for Kelly to take a spot in the batting line up.

One more note...

There's an interesting narrative to follow in this CPL as the Blackcaps have Ish Sodhi and Mitchell Santner in the tournament, two of more high profile T20 spinners in the world from the past 5-7 years. In more recent years though, there has been a shift led by Afghanistan's Rashid Khan that sees high quality spinners in this instance (players in general) from nations like Afghanistan shining in international tournaments.

Part of this stems from Big Bash League opportunities - NZC don't let their best T20 players play BBL.

Meanwhile, Khan is known as a top-three T20 spinner in the world and here are some current CPL stats to compare…

Imran Tahir: 2nd , 8w @ 13.25avg/6.62rpo - South African veteran.

Mujeeb Ur Rahman: 3rd, 6w @ 9.33avg/4.66rpo - 19yrs/Afghanistan.

Sandeep Lamichhane: tied-8th, 4w @ 15.25avg/5.08rpo - 20yrs/Nepal.

Rashid Khan: tied-8th, 4w @ 19.50avg/8.66rpo - 21yrs/Afghanistan.

Mitchell Santner: tied-19th, 2w @ 18.50avg/7.40rpo - 28yrs/Aotearoa.

Ish Sodhi: tied-29th, 1w @ 99avg/9rpo - 27yrs/Aotearoa.

That's how they compare after three/four games and I'll keep an eye on this throughout the tournament.

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Peace and love.