2021 Kiwi County Tour: County Championship + T20 Blast Wrap
The domestic cricket schedule over in England is a hot shambles and yet Aotearoa's cricketers on the Kiwi County Tour continue to dominate. Not all are dominating, but since Devon Conway started the Blackcaps tour of England with a double-banger at Lord's ... wait, Will Young hit back to back centuries for Durham in the County Championship before that. Well, ever since around then these kiwis keep on stacking up chips in favour of Aotearoa cricket being better than England.
There was a brief pause in T20 Blast for one County Championship round and then this morning we had another round of T20 Blast. I'll start with the County Championship stuff.
County Championship
Will Young isn't on the Kiwi County Tour any more, yet this is a great spot to remind folks that as well as hundreds in back to back games, Young then hit 82 in the Test vs England. Fair play as Young didn't put up a score in his first two County games for Durham, after that though he had scores of 124, 5, 103, 82 and 8. Young had 9inns of cricket in England with two centuries and a 82.
That sets the tone coming into the Devon Conway funk. In his first County Championship game ever, Conway hit 88 for Somerset and that's after Conway hit 200 in his first Test ever. Conway has played three Tests, five T20 Blast games and this one County game which amounts to 12inns of batting with seven scores of 50+ including that double-hundy.
Chuck in a 45 in his last T20 Blast outing and that's eight scores of 40+ across 12inns. Remember that all of this is coming after the kiwi summer and we need to stack all of this on top of Conway's Blackcaps work in Aotearoa...
T20I: 11inns, 473 runs @ 59.12avg/151.11sr.
ODI: 3inns, 225 runs @ 75avg/88.23sr.
Conway conquered Aotearoa domestic cricket in finishing among the best run-scorers (if not 1st) across all formats. Then Conway conquered his white ball opportunities for Aotearoa last summer and now Conway is quietly giving English cricket and extended beat-down.
Can't quite say the same for Kyle Jamieson who didn't take a wicket in his County game for Surrey against Hampshire. Jamieson only bowled 6 overs though @ 1.66rpo and as Surrey were dismissed for 72, Jamieson was left on 0* and was then bumped down to bat #11 in Surrey's follow-on innings. Jamieson wasn't required to bat though and apparently has a glute injury that brings his KCT excursion to an end.
Jamieson came up against Colin de Grandhomme in that game and de Grandhomme had his moment in cracking 174* in Hampshire's big first innings. Jamieson was the only surrey bowler to concede less than 3rpo and de Grandhomme cruised along with a strike-rate of 81.69. De Grandhomme didn't need to bowl in Hampshire's first bowling effort, before taking 1w @ 0.75rpo in 8ov. That's 8ov for 6 runs.
There was another dose of kiwi-on-kiwi crime with Glenn Phillips and Daryl Mitchell playing each other in the Gloucestershire vs Middlesex game. Phillips had scores of 13 and 9 in the win for Gloucs, although Mitchell took the KCT big-donnie points with scores of 0 and 73 to go with 2w @ 3.55rpo and 4w @ 4.20rpo. It's a 420 party here as Middlesex were chasing 420 for victory and after conceding 4.20rpo, Mitchell toiled hard to keep Middlesex in the contest with his 73 coming @ 29.55sr.
Auckland's Matt Quinn is also battling away on the KCT, having made a full-time move from Essex to Kent. Quinn hasn't featured in Kent's T20 Blast campaign with Adam Milne taking that spot, yet in County Championship stuff, Quinn is steadily gathering wickets. Against Lancashire, Quinn started with 13* @ 118.18sr batting #10 before taking 3w @ 2.46rpo in 15ov as this game ended in a draw.
Quinn now has 15w @ 17.93avg in County Championship this year. Since moving to England in 2016, Quinn has played six seasons of County cricket and his first three were impressive (21.50avg, 36.83avg, 25.50avg) before injury and opportunities proved to be tricky to navigate. That saw Quinn average 54.85 and 52 in the last two years, then a loan deal to Kent came up and Quinn parlayed that into an extended contract. Quinn is having his best First-Class campaign since his debut in Aotearoa back in 2012/13.
T20 Blast
Here's what the kiwis got up to overnight in T20 Blast...
Devon Conway: 0 runs.
Finn Allen: 66 runs @ 178.37sr.
Colin de Grandhomme: 29 runs @ 147.38sr / 1ov @ 13rpo.
Glenn Phillips: 2 runs @ 33.33sr / 1ov - 1w @ 3rpo.
Daryl Mitchell: 2ov - 2w @ 12rpo / 23 runs @ 147.05sr.
Ish Sodhi: 4ov - 4w @ 6rpo.
Jimmy Neesham: 10 runs @ 111.11sr, 4ov @ 10rpo.
Adam Milne: 4ov - 2w @ 3.25rpo.
Logan van Beek: 2ov - 1w @ 11.50rpo.
Lockie Ferguson is apparently battling a side strain and didn't play in today's game for Yorkshire. Ferguson is still a monster and features on the T20 Blast bowling leaderboard...
Logan van Beek: 8th - 16w @ 22.56avg/9.80rpo/13.8sr.
Lockie Ferguson: 14th - 14w @ 19.21avg/7.27rpo/15.8sr.
Ish Sodhi: 40th - 11w @ 28.45avg/8.02rpo/21.2sr.
Sodhi is the big mover here as his 4-wicket-haul for Worcestershire now has him on a five-game streak of wickets (2w, 1w, 1w, 1w, 4w). First though, Sodhi had to snap a four-game streak without a wicket and his last three games have seen Sodhi find his economical pocket in conceding between 5.33 and 7rpo. Sodhi's overall economy rate is a bit higher thanks to those wicket-less outings and when he's at his best, Sodhi builds pressure through his tight leggies/googlies/flippers.
Adam Milne's on the rise, adding 2w to his T20 Blast campaign after his hat-trick. I've highlighted how hard it is to suss out where Milne's at in T20 bowling now that he seems to be healthy as his performances can be argued as both lovely and ho-hum. Right now though, Milne is putting himself in the frame for T20 World Cup selection and with no shortage of seamers competing for spots there, Milne will need to keep this up.
I'm also keeping close tabs on Daryl Mitchell who hasn't really put a foot wrong since his 73 on Test debut in late 2019. Mitchell was typically solid in his first County Championship game and he added more quick runs with wickets in T20 Blast. Mitchell has only bowled in four T20 Blast games, taking 8w and his six games batting have seen Mitchell put up four scores of 20+ with hefty strike-rates.
Here are Mitchell's T20 stats and keep in mind that Mitchell is bordering on the all-rounder stat marker in FC cricket (averaging 30+ with the bat, sub-30 with the ball) with 38.33 batting average and 30.18 bowling average...
T20 Internationals
Bat: 13inns, 148 runs @ 16.44avg/137.03sr.
Ball: 6inns, 5w @ 22avg/9.85rpo/13.40sr.
T20
Bat: 100ins, 2274 runs @ 31.15avg/131.52sr.
Ball: 57inns, 56w @ 22.55avg/9.04rpo/14.90sr.
Batting in the middle order, Mitchell's task is to have the craft to salvage and innings while also being capable of smacking it around. In both T20 formats, Mitchell has a batting strike-rate over 130 and that's fantastic when packaged with Mitchell's bowling where he averages under 25 with wicket-taking strike-rates below 15. All of which suggests that Mitchell may be a bigger factor in Blackcaps cricket moving forward than many would be pondering right now.
Finn Allen caught fire this morning for Lancashire and he's chasing Glenn Phillips on the T20 Blast run-scoring leaderboard. Allen continues to make his mark in T20 cricket and after 27 games of T20 cricket, Allen is has a record of 39avg/171.11sr. Here's the KCT batting leaderboard...
Glenn Phillips: 10inns, 423 runs @ 60.42avg/162.06sr, 3 x 50.
Finn Allen: 11inn, 311 runs @ 31.10avg/145.32sr, 3 x 50.
Devon Conway: 6inns, 235 runs @ 58.75avg/125sr, 3 x 50.
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