Two games down vs Australia and two funky wins for Aotearoa's Blackcaps. We've had a hearty buffet of fun Blackcaps T20I shenanigans in these two wins from Devon Conway's effortless wizardry to Martin Guptill back in his groove and the spin duo sharing 4 wicket-hauls. Also emerging as a wider idea to tap into is both teams experimenting with their combinations and how players are used, which is to be expected in a long series held at an important time ahead of T20 World Cups.

There are right-left combos being worked, timing of innings is a factor as well with the first game featuring early wickets for Aotearoa and the second game only saw Tim Seifert dismissed in the first 10 overs. Chuck in specific match ups that either team likes and watching these games requires an open mind as line ups are likely to be tinkered with.

Let's roll through some key happenings...

Devon Conway

99* @ 167.80sr in the first game. Everything is easy with Conway and his stroke-play all around the park is what catches the eye. Conway has a shot for apparently every delivery chucked at him and everyone should be aware that Conway has been doing all of this for a long time. Not only has Conway been among, if not the best Super Smash batsman since arriving in Aotearoa (2017), Conway registered a 50+ score in all seven of his T20 campaigns in South Africa.

In the 2018/19 Super Smash, Conway had a strike-rate of 144.04 and then 145.18 in 2018/19. What's crucial here is that Conway didn't hit the most sixes, nor was he close but he jacked up a hefty strike-rate via fours. In 2018/19, Conway hit 50 fours and he was the only batsman who hit 40+ fours, then the next summer he hit 63 fours and fellow Kiwi-African Chad Bowes was the only other batsman to hit 40+ sixes with his 41 sixes.

Conway averages 45+ in First Class, List-A and T20 cricket. In eight games, his T20I average is 68.75. The dude is all class, incredibly lovely to watch and the fact that he hasn't played Test cricket is because we're all in Aotearoa where it's respect to the lads doing the job; Conway is as team-first as anyone else in kiwi cricket.

Martin Guptill

Pure Guppy. 97 @ 194sr in the second game and we all know Guptill is in form when he's having a geeze at the Aotearoa soil while a six is smacked away is disgust - head down, six up.

From the archives…

It's been interesting to hear all the Guptill chat based around 'no 50+ scores in T20I cricket in whatever innings'. The major factor in Guptill's bad form was his lack of Super Smash runs; 6, 9, 29 and 2. Guptill's only knock of substance was the 29 and it came with a strike-rate of 93.55. On top of that, Guptill scored just 127 runs in five Plunket Shield innings (25.40avg) and 76 runs in three Ford Trophy games (25.33avg) and that’s three different domestic formats with minimal Guptill funk.

Players come in and out of form across all levels of cricket, even more so at the international level. The juice in Guptill's lack of form was that he couldn't do much in the Super Smash after struggling elsewhere and any time a dip in international form drops down to domestic cricket; pay attention.

Perhaps more concerning, or more interesting is Tim Seifert. Seifert scored a solid amount of Super Smash runs, although he scored with a strike-rate of 115.63 which is well down on his career T20I strike-rate of 137.14 and T20 strike-rate of 131.80. Slide back to the Caribbean Premier League and in a Trinbago team stacked with talent, thus allowing Seifert to play freely, he finished with 109.91sr.

As I thoroughly enjoy the Guptill/Williamson opening T20I pair, Seifert's the bloke to tap into with these next three games.

Obviously Spark Sport Commentators Don't Eat KFC

Mark Richardson referred to chicken salt as 'chicken flavoured salt' and Scott Stevenson suggested that KFC fries came with chicken season featuring pepper.

It's just chicken salt, available at your local supermarket and if you've got a hot local takeways they should have a chicken salt option.

T20I Spin Duo

Ish Sodhi and Mitchell Santner are the weapons. 4w @ 7rpo in the first game for Sodhi, then 4w @ 7.75rpo for Santner in the second game and while Sodhi went for 13.67rpo in the second game this is all about their wickets. In fact, the quartet of these two along with Tim Southee and Trent Boult is the best collection of T20I bowlers from Aotearoa.

Best T20I Averages All Time - Rashid Khan is 1st @ 12.62avg.

Daniel Vettori: 19.68avg - 23rd.

Mitchell Santner: 21.18avg - 40th.

Nathan McCullum: 22.03avg - 45th.

Ish Sodhi: 23.54avg - 61st.

Trent Boult: 23.95avg - 63rd.

Tim Southee: 25.72avg - 82nd.

Best T20I Strike-Rates All Time - Rashid Khan is 1st @ 12.3sr.

Trent Boult: 16.6sr - 26th.

Mitchell Santner: 16.9sr - 31st.

Ish Sodhi: 17.4sr - 38th.

Tim Southee: 18.3sr - 54th.

This quartet are the most potent T20I bowlers from Aotearoa, ever. They also fall into the top-55 strike-rates in the world all time, while their averages are all in the top-100.

Santner is also a 'best fielder in the world' guy. Sodhi took a delightful catch to dismiss Glenn Maxwell, plus we know what Boult and Southee can do in the field; these four all time best T20I bowlers are good fielders. Santner is my favourite fielder though and the reason I've got him ahead of Guptill or Phillips in the Aotearoa bubble is that he has the required speed/agility to make stops as well as funky release points to throw.

Easy example is the 'slink' that we saw in the Test vs Pakistan. Santner gets to the ball like the best in the business, then he can twist is body and/or flick his wrist to biff the throw in seconds before a mere mortal would otherwise. While I'm here...

Don't expect to see Santner or Devon Conway throw above the shoulder. Maybe that's due to shoulder issues, maybe it's just the slinky style. If you love a good throw, compare this to the Aussies who have 10 blokes with rocket-arms and they love to show it off by firing in these rockets no matter what the batsmen are up to.

Jimmy Neesham

We didn't get to see if Kane Williamson would turn to Neesham for the final over in the first game as Australia were dismissed early, then Neesham bowled his only over of the game in the 20th over of the second game. Neesham's Super Smash was limited by a wrecked finger and he only played seven games, yet he took 12w and that had him ranked 5th for all bowlers. The key here is his strike-rate of 13.3 which along with Auckland's Ross ter Braak (11.3sr) and Danru Ferns (13.3sr) were the only bowling strike-rates below 14.5 of the 15 bowlers with 10+ wickets. (Both ter Braak and Ferns are Kiwi-Africans as well)

Neesham rolled up and smoked Super Smash wickets. Then Neesham takes 2w in the clutch death over. No matter what your view of Neesham's bowling is, he takes wickets.

In the Super Smash though, Neesham wasn't quite as good with the bat with his championship Wellington Firebirds outfit. Neesham scored 89 runs @ 17.80avg/115.58sr this was clearly a blip, not just compared to Neesham's slugging vs Australia but also compared to Neesham's T20I slugging overall. Here's how Neesham's T20I strike-rates break down by year...

2012: 129.41sr.

2014: 130sr.

2015: 147.36sr.

2017: 117.64sr.

2019: 165.78sr.

2020: 171.05sr.

2021: 229.03sr.

Those last three years have taken Neesham's career T20I strike-rate up to 160.50 and that's bonkers. For context, the best T20I strike-rate with a minimum of 250 deliveries faced is 165.80 and that's the only one over 160. Neesham has only faced 200 T20I deliveries so he's not ranked here, but he's currently working with the second best T20I strike-rate ever.

Daniel Sams

Deep in the mangroves, hearty kiwi cricket fans will remember that Aussie all-rounder Daniel Sams had a stint with Canterbury back in the summer of 2017/18. In the mellow Plunket Shield, Sams played three games and smacked two 50+ scores, 241 runs all up @ 40.16avg/103.43sr and that was the highest batting strike-rate in the Plunket Shield that summer.

Sams hit 11 sixes and only Neesham, Anton Devcich (both 12) and Neil Wagner (15) hit more sixes. None of them had strike-rates over 100 though, in fact no 2017/18 Plunket Shield batsman had a strike-rate over 100 except for Sams.

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Peace and love.