Touching Base With Kiwi-IPL Mahi
Leaving Pakistan ahead of five T20I games wasn't ideal preparation for the upcoming T20 World Cup but a collection of Aotearoa's best cricketers trooping through the Indian Premier League's second stanza kept the flame alive. These lads are getting T20 reps in the United Arab Emirates where the World Cup will be held and that's a blanket positive across them. No one has been in dominant form though and those who were working towards nice form such as Lockie Ferguson have drifted under the injury cloud.
Ferguson has been the best kiwi since the IPL re-started having not played in the first stanza for Kolkata. In his four games, Ferguson has 7w @ 13.42avg/6.71rpo and his bowling strike-rate of 12 is ranked 5th for all IPL bowlers. Ferguson has spread his 7w across all four games with 2w in three of those games and continues to be one of the low key most productive kiwi cricket exports after taking 14w @ 19.21avg/7.27rpo in England's T20 Blast (10 games).
The forecast for Ferguson though is overcast with injury clouds. Another injury has hit the pause button on this IPL campaign and it seems as though Ferguson is injured more than he is fit for international cricket. I've got Ferguson as a 1st 11 bowler for the World Cup and all of this feels typical in the sense that Ferguson always shows what a good bowler he is before suffering some kind of injury.
At least Ferguson is injured though and hasn't fell out of his IPL team's 1st 11. Kyle Jamieson played two games since the re-start with no wickets and this gets worse as Jamieson has taken 1w in his last eight games of cricket since the World Test Championship final. That includes five T20 Blast games, one County Championship game and two IPL outings. Remember that Jamieson took 1w in four games vs Australia earlier this year @ 175avg/11.66rpo.
Bangalore have played four games in this second stanza and Jamieson's played two. This is a curious experiment as Jamieson's height has made him a menace in Test cricket and as we saw against Australia, that height can be easily hit-able in T20 cricket against aggressive batsmen. Jamieson started well in the IPL with 9w in seven games and now Jamieson is battling to get game time.
Trent Boult is battling away with Mumbai. Boult has played all four of Mumbai's games in the second stanza with 3w stretched across two games and two games without a wicket. All up Boult has 11w in 11 games @ 29.81avg/8.33rpo and with a T20I bowling average of 23.34 as well as a T20 average of 26.28; there is a certain reliability to Boult's T20 mahi.
Kane Williamson joins Boult as the blokes who play the most IPL games and are the most reliable kiwis. Playing for Hyderabad provides an interesting comparison for Williamson as David Warner is getting plenty of buzz around his lack of production although it's not too different to what Williamson has been up to...
Williamson: 8inns, 209 runs @ 52.25avg/112.97sr, 2 x 50.
Warner: 8inns, 195 run @ 24.37avg/107.73sr, 2 x 50.
The difference is Williamson's four not-out innings that bolster his average while Warner has none. Hyderabad are last with a 2-9 record so it's dubious as to how beneficial Williamson's not-outs are and Williamson's strike-rate is the lowest since his 2016 IPL campaign. In typical Williamson fashion, he has managed to polish this turd enough to escape the vitriol that Warner's receiving. Williamson is not in vintage T20 form and this sets up an intriguing T20 World Cup for Williamson where he will be relied upon to hold innings together while other blokes give it a whack.
Tim Southee and Tim Seifert have popped up for Kolkata with Southee playing the last two games and Seifert stepping in for their game overnight. Southee took 1w @ 7.25rpo in his first outing before going for 10rpo without a wicket while Seifert batted #7 and wasn't wicket-keeper to score 2 runs @ 50sr.
T20I is literally Southee's best format and has been one of Aotearoa's best T20I bowlers since 2017 so I've got him as a 1st 11 member. We've yarned through Seifert's situation plenty at the Niche Cache and after another meh Caribbean Premier League campaign (22.12avg/112.73sr) where Seifert rarely played as W-K, Seifert doesn't seem to be fizzing with confidence at the moment.
Adam Milne continues to be solid in T20 leagues while not good enough for the T20 World Cup squad. Milne played three games for Mumbai and they lost all three, before slipping out of Mumbai's 1st 11 and Mumbai winning that game. Milne took 3w in his trio of games and has 14w in his last 10 games (all T20), which compared to Jamieson is fantastic.
Jimmy Neesham isn't playing.
Mitchell Santner isn't playing and is testing out his lefty-seam...
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