2021/2 Plunket Shield: Sneaky Otago Defeat Central Districts
Otago Volts grabbed their first win of the Plunket Shield season, defeating Central Districts Stags in Nelson and jumping up to 2nd on the ladder. Canterbury are alone at the top and they are the only team to win two games so far, while Otago have had a win, loss and draw from their three games which puts them ahead of Wellington's win and two losses. CD are yet to win a game, with a loss and two draws to start their summer.
That points to a ho-hum start to the summer for CD cricket overall. CD Hinds lost both games vs Otago Sparks in the Hallyburton Johnston Shield, which when combined with the Stags gives CD no wins from their first five games of the summer. Despite being bowled out by Otago on the final day to seal the result, CD Stags don't have major issues with the bat as this game featured a 60 from Brad Schmulian in the first innings as well as Tom Bruce's 77 in the second innings. These two are part of a hearty Stags batting core that has started the season strongly...
Greg Hay: 3rd - 297 runs @ 59.40avg, 2 x 100.
Tom Bruce: 5th - 287 runs @ 95.66avg, 3 x 50.
Dane Cleaever: 7th - 282 runs @ 56.40avg, 1 x 100.
Brad Schmulian: 8th - 277 runs @ 46.16avg, 1 x 100, 1 x 50.
CD do not have a bowler averaging below 30 though and even their leading wicket-taker Blair Tickner's taken his 9w @ 36.11avg. The main note here is about senior Stags seamers Doug Bracewell and Ben Wheeler who haven't quite been as slick as they need to be. Bracewell has 6w @ 52.16avg and Wheeler has 5w @ 49.20avg, which is notable given how other seamers have performed through three games.
CD have had to play at three different venues, while Wellington have enjoyed three home games. That's the only real counter note I could come up with as CD's games haven't been dominated by batsmen, even though they haven't been as bowler-friendly as the games in Wellington. CD have been dismissed in four of six innings and while Canterbury were on par with CD in the first game, Otago put up 642/6dec in the second game and this recent win was set up by a second innings 422/7dec.
With wickets falling in all of CD's games and two high quality domestic seamers in their line up, Bracewell and Wheeler haven't found their groove. This is in contrast to a seam attack like Canterbury who have all their seamers firing for the second summer in a row and I'm curious to see how this plays out moving forward.
As for Otago, they were graced with 113 from Dale Phillips in the first dig then 101 from Hamish Rutherford, 134 from Mitch Renwick and 66 from Nick Kelly in the second innings to set up the win.
Phillips is building after his debut 2019/20 season saw him score 41 runs in 5inns. Last summer Phillips hit a century and three half-centuries to average 41.90, but he started this season quietly with scores of 0, 19 and 14. We know Dale's older bro Glenn is a lovely whacker of a cricket ball and Dale has a similar style, however with Dale averaging 31.20 after 12 First-Class games and Glenn averaging 38 after 40 FC games; these two are simply quality batsmen.
Dale is in a fantastic spot to keep growing, batting behind opening duo Rutherford and Renwick while Kelly is in glorious form as well. Three games for Rutherford and he scored a 77 in the first game, followed by centuries in back to back games vs CD. I'm repeating ideas from this yarn about Rutherford and Renwick's runs, now updated with Renwick averaging 40+ for the first year of his seven years in FC cricket.
Prior to this season, Renwick had one century. Now he's bagged two this season and both have come against his former team CD. Kelly is most intriguing of this crop though as he finished 3rd in Plunket Shield runs last summer (Rutherford sits 2nd for the second season in a row) with six half-centuries and no century in his 15inns. Kelly went a step further last round with a hefty knock of 234* and backed it up with 66 this round.
Nick Kelly: 1st - 333 runs @ 83.25avg, 1 x 100, 1 x 50.
Hamish Rutherford: 2nd - 330 runs @ 66avg, 2 x 100, 1 x 50.
Mitch Renwick: 6th - 282 runs @ 56.40avg, 2 x 100.
Wickets were nicely shared between Otago's bowlers and Travis Muller leads Otago with 11w @ 26.81avg. This most recent win didn't involve Jacob Duffy, while lefty-leggy Michael Rippon took 6 of his 8w overall in this game - 5w were bowled...
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