Jah Bless The Caribbean: Kiwi-CPL Update #4
One block of Caribbean Premier League games is left before semi-finals are played next week and everything is fairly mellow for the kiwi lads. Jamaica's Glenn Phillips is still the chief of the kiwi CPL crew as he followed his 79* that led the last update with a knock of 41, which now has Phillips second in runs with 248 runs @ 41.33vg/128.49sr and he's a smidge behind the leading run-scorer Shimron Hetmyer.
The funk here sits with Phillips playing eight games so far, while Hetmyer and his Guyana comrade Ross Taylor have played their 10 games and won't play again until the semi-finals. Guyana are 2nd on the ladder with 12 points (6-4) so they should slide into the knockout stage, then the two teams who have played nine games are rooted to the bottom of the ladder and three teams have played eight games.
Phillips is the only batsman in the top-five for runs who has played eight games and that makes for some lovely insights; only one of the eight batsmen with 200+ runs has an average over 40 and that is the Howick Pakuranga junior Phillips. On top of that, Colin Munro's 133.54sr is the only strike-rate of that 200+ runs group that is better than Phillips' 128.49sr.
However you want it sliced and diced, Phillips has having an emphatic CPL campaign and that's reason to be low key intrigued as to how he starts the kiwi summer. Munro and Trinbago are at the top of the ladder, with Munro putting up 9* in his only innings of the last few days and team mate Tim Seifert wasn't overly bus either with a score of 2 in that game.
Seifert hasn't been able to flex too much given how stacked Trinbago's batting line up is and he is tucked away down the order while four Trinbago batsmen have 150+ runs. Of that group, Kieron Pollard has a strike-rate of 206.25, Darren Bravo's averaging 47.25, Munro has a lovely 34.50avg/133.54sr balance and Lendl Simmons is their leading run-scorer.
It's been a weird ol' tournament for Ross Taylor and he's got the lowest strike-rate of the 16 batsmen who have scored 150+ runs overall. Taylor has a general T20 strike-rate of 131.16 and a T20I strike-rate of 122.68, while his CPL strike-rate is 91.47 - almost has low as his career ODI strike-rate. With Guyana now kicking back, we will have to wait and see Taylor's influence in possible knockout games and perhaps the fact that Taylor has three not-out innings in a row will provide momentum moving forward.
Scott Kuggeleijn added 1w to his tally, still among the best bowlers despite taking 2w in his last four games. Ranked third, Kuggeleijn is one of two seamers in the top-six bowlers and St Lucia are a team who have played eight games which means Kuggeleijn will play two games over the next two days; first vs the Trinbago monsters, then Phillips and Jamaica.
Those two games may sum up the CPL for Kuggeleijn nicely. If he can perform against the best batsmen, his stocks will be boosted. I'm still pondering whether his effectiveness has dipped and a lack of wickets against to finish his tournament may better reflect where Kuggeleijn's at. With 12w @ 15.75avg/7.82 rpo, Kuggeleijn has bowled the fewest overs of the top-five wicket-takers while also being one of the few to snare a 4w-haul and those two factors kinda balance each other out.
Mitchell Santner has been quietly chipping away with runs and wickets for Barbados, taking 1w and scoring 18 runs in his last outing. With four not-out innings, Santner's batting average is 36.66 with a strike-rate of 104.75, which is similar to his bowling work as he has been a solid contributor taking 6w @ 20.50avg/5.67rpo.
Unfortunately, Barbados is a point ahead of St Kitts & Nevis at the bottom of the ladder and Corey Anderson has not been sighted since August 30th. Anderson has played seven of nine games and if you want a nugget to take with you into kiwi sports chats around a bbq/bong, throw up Anderson's CPL batting average of 7.57.
Correct. Yup. Chur. Corey Anderson has a CPL batting average of 7.57 ... not even with a slugger stirke-rate as his strike-rate is 86.88. The dramatic narrative here is that Anderson may be washed up, I'll be less dramatic and suggest that we keep an eye on how much cricket Anderson plays this summer.
There is a similar unluggy vibe for the St Kitts & Nevis duo of Ish Sodhi and Nick Kelly. Kelly has played just four of nine games and that's understandable given his place in the squad, although Kelly hasn't quite snapped up his opportunities with 21 runs @ 7avg/75sr in 3inns. That flows into Sodhi, who has played five of nine games and hasn't played since August 30, still knocking around with 2w @ 79.50avg/9.08rpo.
While we're here for kiwi cricket T20 antics, there is a trio of kiwis in England playing T20 Blast and doing rather well. Games are ongoing as I'm writing this, so don't cling to these numbers and I'm updating the work of these lads in our email newsletter thing so sign up for the kiwi sports funk...
Auckland seamer Matt Quinn has 6w @ 18avg/7.28rpo in 14.5 overs for Essex.
The legend Jeetan Patel has 4w @ 23.75avg/8.63rpo in 11ov for Birmingham.
Otago batsman Hamish Rutherford hasn't quite scored enough runs to get on the leaderboard, with steady scores of 5, 30, 22 and 1 for Worcestershire.
Some how, some way Aotaeroa has kiwi cricketers in two T20 competitions right now. While the world of T20 franchise cricket isn't very interesting, it is 2020 and at least we've got kiwis doing the cricket thing.
Hit an ad to support the Niche Cache. Or jump on Patreon as that is the best way to support these kiwi cricket yarns.
Peace and love.