2021/22 Men's Super Smash: Dane Cleaver Goes Bang
Two games into the Men's Super Smash and two very different trends popped up as Finn Allen led Wellington to victory over Canterbury and CD defeated Otago thanks to T20 batting from Greg Hay and Dane Cleaver. Allen continued along his 'Aotearoa's best slugger' path with another destructive knock which falls into alignment with all his T20 mahi, while the Hay and Cleaver angle is the opposite given these two haven't been notable Super Smash batters prior to this weekend.
Allen hit 57 runs @ 190sr as Wellington put up 177/7 vs Canterbury. Ed Nuttall took 3w @ 7.75rpo for Canterbury, who then reached 150/9 in their 20 overs with Jack Boyle's 31 the best knock for Canterbury. Michael Bracewell took 3w @ 5.50rpo for Wellington, while Hamish Bennett and Nathan Smith picked up 2w each.
Last summer, Allen led all Super Smash run-scorers and had a strike-rate of 193. Allen started this campaign with 190sr and he's cruising along at 171sr in T20 cricket, as well as 190sr after six T20I games. How opposition bowlers deal with Allen at the top of the order will be a crucial idea throughout this Super Smash as Allen enters this season with extra layers of confidence from his travels. Allen won't be weary of any Super Smash bowler and he was quick to dispatch Nuttall in the first over, plus there doesn't appear to be any major weakness for bowlers to try and exploit either.
Allen also seems comfortable in chucking each format into different buckets. I've steadily laid out how Allen hasn't churned out big runs in Plunket Shield and when he has scored Ford Trophy runs, he's done so with Super Smash swag. None of that matters when stuck on T20 cricket though as Allen's slugging confidence is palpable.
This was Allen's only 50+ score in his last 10 games which includes The Hundred, T20Is in Bangladesh and Plunket Shield. 14 innings and Allen has one 50+ score. However, Allen has just one score below 10. In the Super Smash, any score from Allen will be helpful if he's operating around 170sr and frequent knocks of 20-30 with great strike-rates will be fine among Allen's bigger scores.
Hamish Rutherford hit 82 @ 174sr to take Otago to 184/4, before Greg Hay's 56 @ 121sr and Dane Cleaver's 114* @ 211sr took CD to victory (185/5 in 19 overs). Just like Tim Southee's Blackcaps excellence in T20I and Test cricket, these three have all been churning out runs in the Plunket Shield prior to this Super Smash outing...
Dane Cleaver: 2nd - 375 runs @ 62.50avg.
Hamish Rutherford: 3rd - 371 runs @ 53avg.
Greg Hay: 6th - 337 runs @ 48.14avg.
Rutherford was excellent on his home turf in Dunedin and he continues to be a key figure for Otago in all competitions. Hay is a funky tale of coming back into the T20 fold after being confined to Plunket Shield with sporadic Ford Trophy appearances (averaging 40+ in both formats) and Hay's role appears to be perfectly aligned with Cleaver's ascension
Last summer, Cleaver hit 177 runs @ 16avg/108sr in the Super Smash. This season Cleaver has been given freedom to slug near the top of the order and batting alongside the steady Hay only amplified Cleaver’s freedom. There is more to Cleaver's expansion than him catching a different T20 wave though. Cleaver finished last summer with four 50+ scores in four consecutive Plunket Shield games, before coach Rob Walter's arrival earlier this year has resulted in even more runs.
Cleaver's four Plunket Shield games this summer amount to his best summer of First-Class cricket so far which has now been parlayed into a monster of a knock to start the Super Smash. Don't sleep as Cleaver has averaged 40+ in five of his last seven FC seasons and in the other two he has averaged 38 and 39. That gives Cleaver a career FC average of 42 and with more opportunities in CD's top order throughout this Super Smash, Cleaver should add to his T20 record of 21.87avg/131sr.
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