Kyle Jamieson and Finn Allen aren't just young Auckland cricketers making waves in Aotearoa, one with the ball and one with the bat. These two are both set to join Royal Challengers Bangalore and there's enough convenience with that to make it fairly interesting, however the context around what each of these lads have been doing this summer amplifies the funk for their Indian Premier League situations.

As always, I'm not overly fussed by the IPL. The funk here resides in how the IPL relates to kiwi cricketers and what the IPL process will churn out the other side, especially when these IPL waters get a bit murky. The waters of context around Jamieson and Allen are also rather murky.

Jamieson earned a big ol' payday via the best 12 months we've seen from a new Blackcap Test player. Around the time of the IPL auction, Jamieson was playing Super Smash cricket for Auckland Aces where he took 5w @ 28.20avg/8.05rpo/21sr in his five games of action. That's a fairly solid effort from Jamieson, although there is a slither of what was to come in this Super Smash work.

Nothing drastic, just a dip in Jamieson's Super Smash efficiency. Here's how Jamieson's Super Smash career looks...

2016/17: 7w @ 31.71avg/8.53rpo/22.28sr.

2017/18: 7w @ 14.71avg/8.70rpo/10.14sr.

2018/19: 22w @ 12.77avg/7.33rpo/10.45sr.

2019/20: 8w @ 25.87avg/9.40rpo/16.50sr.

2020/21: 5w @ 28.20avg/8.05rpo/21sr.

Jamieson had two summers averaging below 15, with strike-rates between 10-11. That's impressive and in the context of his Super Smash career they appear to be out-liers among solid campaigns. Four of those Super Smash games form Jamieson's last 10 games of cricket, along with four T20I games vs Australia and two ODIs vs Bangladesh where that series is ongoing.

In his last 10 games, Jamieson has taken 6 wickets. Compare that to Trent Boult, who has taken 16 wickets in his last 10 games, all of which are white-ball games like Jamieson.

The T20I series vs Australia came straight after the IPL auction and naturally, Jamieson's performances vs Australia would have perked a few antenna up. The truth is that the series vs Australia is part of a slight dip in how effective Jamieson has been and while we can all see Jamieson's talent, it's also easy to see how IPL business is conducted around hype.

Finn Allen was a recent replacement for Aussie Josh Philippe, meaning that unlike Jamieson's hefty price-tag and thus salary cap space, RCB had to replace Philippe with a player of similar value. Like Jamieson's bonkers Test cricket work and splashes of ODI excellence, Allen's Super Smash campaign was bonkers; 512 runs @ 56.88avg/193.93sr.

Allen didn't have the highest strike-rate of the Super Smash, yet the two blokes with higher strike-rates were Logan van Beek and Will Somerville who scored 61 and 46 runs respectively. Allen had the most runs and the highest strike-rate of any batsman with 100+ runs, smacking all sort of bowling attacks and scoring runs around Aotearoa.

What is funky with Allen is that he look really good smacking the ball around, but hasn't quite kicked on when tasked with not smacking the ball around. Allen played three game of Plunket Shied cricket to start the summer, scoring 40 runs @ 6.66avg and prior to the Super Smash, Allen played two Ford Trophy games with 36 runs.

After the Super Smash, Allen returned to Ford Trophy with scores of 0, 7, 46, 128 and 24.

The knock of 46 was scored with a strike-rate of 219.05.

The knock of 128 was scored with a strike-rate of 216.95.

Then the knock of 24 was scored a a regular human tempo of 82.76sr.

Regardless of how you view Allen as a prospect and I'm intrigued to see him play vs Bangladesh in what should be a favourable situation, the disparity between Allen's success in smacking the ball and his struggles when batting normally is weird. Maybe Allen is a legit freak who is going to change batting?

The key point here is that Jamieson and Allen both have a slice of weirdness in their work recently. These are two kiwi cricket up and comers who enter the IPL with their respective slices of weirdness, chucked into the same RCB squad ... where their status as overseas players makes things even weirder.

RCB Overseas Players

Adam Zampa, Daniel Sams, Kane Richardson, Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers, Dan Christian.

Chuck Jamieson and Allen in there and RCB can only select four overseas players in their team for each game. Factor in these notable Indian players...

RCB Notable Indians

Virat Kohli, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammaed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar.

Kohli is a lovely chap. Siraj and Saini formed a hostile Indian seam attack in Australia, while Washington Sundar emerged as an impressive all-round talent in the Test series vs Australia. Chahal plays chess with fellow leggy Ish Sodhi and cruises around with a T20I bowling average of 25.40 to go with his T20 average of 24.29 - across plenty of games.

I won't deep dive into the possible RCB team combinations. I will suggest that Chahal, Siraj, Saini and Sundar can all handle frontline IPL bowling duties, thus forming the bulk of their bowling attack. Chuck in one or two of that Aussie crew in Zampa, Sams and Richardson to build out the bowling unit, which will depend on whether Maxwell, de Villiers and/or Christian are selected.

Leaving Jamieson in a intriguing spot. Allen at least has lower expectations given his lower salary and squad status, meaning that Allen is likely to benefit from being part of this group and learning from ... Kohli or de Villiers. Jamieson is on big money and having taken a peek at this RCB squad, it's unlikely that Jamieson plays more than 10 games based solely on the balance of overseas players. Let alone how Jamieson performs.

I don't know if IPL teams care how much money the pay someone who is not playing. In other salary cap leagues such as NBA or NRL, it is a hugely inefficient way to manage the salary cap and under the guidance of Mike Hesson, RCB may have created an awkward spot for Jamieson. When someone else places a high value on you, they are placing are high expectation on you. In the case of RCB, they've blown this stuff out of the water for Jamieson and this makes for an intriguing few months ahead. Stay tuned.

Peace and love.