Jah Bless The Caribbean: More Kiwis In the 2020 CPL
After breaking down the initial group of Aotearoa cricketers who will play in the 2020 Caribbean Premier League, it appears that a few more kiwis have been added and that only doubles the funk. Mitchell Santner and Corey Anderson will lace up for Barbados Tridents, Nick Kelly joins Ish Sodhi at St Kitts & Nevis Patriots and Scott Kuggeleijn was picked up by St Lucia Zouks; all of which seems to have been announced by NZC and none of which seems to have been officially announced by the CPL or the respective teams.
This likely stems from travel restrictions for South African and English players as five South Africans couldn't make it to the Caribbean in time, while two English players are stuck in England. South African international Imran Tahir for example is in a unique position, having been in his native Pakistan after playing in the Pakistan Super League and could then travel to the Caribbean. All of which is great news for the kiwis as opportunities are presented to some rather intriguing kiwi cricketers ahead of the kiwi summer.
Santner is the least interesting of this fresh group as he is a certified T20I performer. The whole Kiwi-CPL whanau can be split fairly nicely between top-tier lads who could dominate/play influential roles and those who can boost their stocks dramatically (or slip down the pecking order if other lads in Aotearoa step up). The top-tier features Santner, Sodhi, Ross Taylor, Colin Munro and Jamaican legend Glenn Phillips.
Nothing too crazy there and I'll be interested in how effective they can be, what levels of influence they have and generally enjoying their cricketing exploits. As far as repercussions and ramifications leading into the kiwi summer, Anderson, Kelly and Kuggeleijn are joined by Tim Seifert in having a fabulous opportunity ahead of them.
Otago Volts batsman Nick Kelly is the low key joker to keep tabs on as he has earned his CPL crack via finishing third in Super Smash runs last season @ 44.22avg/139.64sr. That is reinforced by a career average of 27.11 and strike-rate of 135.05, both of which are super healthy through 39 games and this is a chance for Kelly to level up from domestic cricket in Aotearoa.
First is the CPL where Kelly will have to deal with that higher quality, then Kelly will bounce back to Aotearoa where he could build on what was a solid summer across all three domestic formats last season. Working in Kelly's favour could be the presence of Sodhi as they played many seasons together for Northern Districts Knights before Kelly went south and Kelly will have Aussies Chris Lynn and Ben Dunk to offer experience in the batting line up.
How much cricket Kelly plays will obviously be a huge factor. For the top-tier, I'm fizzing because I know that they are likely to play every CPL game and that's awesome compared to Indian Premier League where it's far more sporadic. For a guy like Kelly though, the situation is different and he will have to earn his game time, then perform to command further selection. All of which will inform us immensely of Kelly's potential.
Anderson is a doosra in the sense that no one has any idea about what to expect from him and this summer is shaping as a crucial juncture in Anderson's cricketing career. I wrote about Anderson's cricketing career early in the lockdown and that whole process was fascinating, which then resulted in Anderson losing his T20 gig in England with Somerset. Now Anderson gets a late CPL call up and for someone who played their last Test in early 2016, their last ODI in mid-2017 and last T20I in late 2018; the Blackcaps mixer kinda spat Anderson out the other end.
Now with Auckland Aces, Anderson averaged 21.50/120.56sr in the Super Smash last season and while the Aces lost the final to Wellington Firebirds, Anderson didn't feature in the last three games. As I wrote in that Anderson thing a few months back, Anderson appeared to lose his spot to Will O'Donnell in that clutch stage of the Super Smash and O'Donnell quickly gathered one of the top-five highest strike-rates in last season's Super Smash.
There's a weird ol' thing with Anderson's T20I work where his annual T20I averages have increased year by year (2012-18), although his number of games hit a peak of 10 in 2016 and then fell off a cliff in 2017 and 2018. I've got no idea what Anderson will dish up, yet I do know that a hefty CPL will be great for Anderson and everyone knows that Anderson has the pure talent to explode with CPL runs.
Anderson has the pure talent, maybe the purest of cricketing talent in Aotearoa. Working against that is his lack of cricket and this has resulted in Aotearoa's plethora of young talent overtaking Anderson, a wave that could be about to wash over Kuggeleijn as well. Kuggeleijn has enjoyed steady Blackcaps selection in recent years, while not actually playing a whole lot and at some stage, Kuggeleijn would be wise to stamp his mark on international cricket ... asap.
Here are some notable Kuggeleijn T20 stats from last summer...
T20I series vs England: 2 games, 4 overs, 0 wickets @ 13.75rpo.
T20I series vs India: 3 games, 10ov, 3w @ 24.66avg/7.40rpo.
Super Smash: 10 games, 39ov, 9w @ 40.66avg/9.38rpo.
Bit all over the show there, leaning towards mediocre but not quite full hundies there. Kuggeleijn has a T20I bowling average of 41.75 after 12 games and T20 average of 32.30 (95 games), again leaning towards mediocre. That's how things have been though and all the funk with Kuggeleijn and Anderson centres around where they want to take their careers from this point. For both, T20 cricket will present the most Blackcaps opportunities in the next six months and it's lovely that their first post-lockdown chance to stack up runs/wickets comes in the CPL.
The CPL starts on August 18th and games will flow hard and fast. You know where to get the goods on how these kiwi lads are performing.
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Peace and love.