No T20 Blast, this week has been all about County Championship cricket over in England and Aotearoa's cricketers on the Kiwi County Tour got busy with their mahi. Ish Sodhi's 6 wickets for Worcestershire was the pick of the KCT glory this week and this was Sodhi's first red-ball switch of the English summer as he's been a consistent presence on the Worcs T20 Blast outfit.

In the recent T20 blast I highlighted how Sodhi had flipped a four-game streak without a wicket into five consecutive games with wickets. That translated nicely into County cricket where spinners were ripping and dipping, which was best displayed by Indian spinner Ravi Ashwin who opened the bowling for Surrey in both innings against Devon Conway's Somerset. Ashwin bowled 43ov in that first innings (1w) and then backed it up with 6w in 15 overs as he led Surrey's spin crew to roll Somerset for 69.

Don't worry, Ashwin didn't dismiss Conway - hold that thought.

Spin was a key factor in this round of KCT cricket and Sodhi put in two hefty shifts...

30.2ov - 6w @ 2.93rpo / 19ov @ 3.10rpo.

No wickets in the second innings, 10 wickets in his last two games of cricket is pretty handy. Including Sodhi's five game streak of T20 wickets, he now has 15w in six games and that sparked a pocket to explore as Sodhi has been fairly solid in Aotearoa's Plunket Shield over the past few summers. Sodhi's First-Class bowling average is 34.27 and based on what I've been seeing in the Plunket Shield, that felt a bit high and so I went through each of Sodhi's Plunket Shield seasons to get the breakdown...

2012/13: 20w @ 44.80avg/4.07rpo.

2013/14 14w @ 37.85avg/3.68rpo.

2014/15: 21w @ 42.23avg/3.55rpo.

2015/16: 22w @ 29.22avg/4.27rpo.

2016/17: 40w @ 25.92avg/3.46rpo.

2017/18: 28w @ 13.92avg/2.42rpo.

2018/19: 36w @ 24.97avg/2.85rpo (1st - only spinner 30+ wickets).

2019/20: 3w @ 80avg/4.37rpo.

2020/21: 17w @ 28.29avg/2.83rpo.

Sodhi earned his Blackcaps Test debut in 2013 and played 11 of his 17 Tests prior to the end of 2014. That basically means that Sodhi cracked the Test team and held on to Test selection during the worst period of his Plunket Shield bowling. As Sodhi has improved in the Plunket Shield aside from the 2019/20 outlier, his Test opportunities dried up and given that I love a Test leggy, I wouldn't mind a few more kahunas in giving Sodhi a crack as an attacking Test spinner.

Aotearoa spin though, well it's all based on your vibe. All these spin contenders have stats to back up selection arguments and there isn't exactly a beast of a spinner dominating, commanding selection; Sodhi's work above is fairly similar to Ajaz Patel. What I took away from exploring those above numbers was how far Aotearoa cricket has come from those early years of Sodhi's career where the best option was to select a young spinner based on potential.

A young spinner averaging 40+ probably shouldn't get a debut like that. A young spinner averaging 35+ in their first three years isn't demanding selection and upon reflection, the rush to get Sodhi into Test cricket kinda hurt his long-term prospects. Mitchell Santner is a similar case study as he was selected early in his FC career and we all know how slick Santner looks with bat and ball, so it's easy to be captivated.

Santner and Sodhi had to learn how to bowl in Test cricket, while they were settling into FC cricket. The likes of Patel and Will Somerville had years to perfect their craft, to grow up as blokes. Given Sodhi's Plunket Shield mahi in the last six summers, I'd suggest that Sodhi is obviously following the growth journey and this sets up an intriguing Plunket Shield campaign for the leggy back in Aotearoa.

Conway? He has bowled twice and is (relatively) horribly out of form. Conway had a duck in his last T20 Blast outing, then scored 21 and 12 in this County Championship game. I think we'll have to get used to Conway catching an inside edge on to his stumps every so often as he does prod at deliveries away from his pads, although usually he's finding the middle of his bat so all good. Conway's first dismissal was played-on, then one went through his gate off a spinner...

Glenn Phillips (Gloucestershire) and Colin de Grandhomme (Hampshire) played each other, with Hampshire taking the win although de Grandhomme wasn't bullying Phillips. Phillips had scores of 47 and 16*, while de Grandhomme had scores of 0 and 12* as he finished not-out to seal the Hampshire win. The real juice here is with their bowling and I have to chuck Daryl Mitchell (Middlesex) into this yarn as he's steadily taking wickets as well.

Phillips vs Hampshire: 14ov - 2w @ 4.78rpo.

de Grandhomme vs Gloucestershire: 18ov - 4w @ 1.72rpo / 11ov - 1w @ 2.81rpo.

Mitchell vs Leicestershire: 15ov - 2w @ 2.86rpo / 10ov - 1w @ 2.50rpo.

Mitchell also had scores of 38 and 23 in Middlesex's win. In his two KCT games, Mitchell has 9 wickets and his T20 Blast bowling has also seen Mitchell take 8 wickets in 4inns. De Grandhomme now has 5 wickets in a couple KCT appearances and these two are going to be highly competitive around the Blackcaps all-rounder spot. Maybe Phillips will as well considering his offies continue to develop.

Phillips has a wicket in each of his last two T20 Blast games, but he didn't grab a wicket in his previous KCT outing. Now Phillips has 4w in his last four games and this comes after Phillips had 3w @ 21avg in last summer's Ford Trophy, along with 3w @ 32.33avg in the Super Smash. I can stretch this theme out to Jimmy Neesham as he popped up for Essex and put in a similar all-round display as these lads; 4.1ov - 2w @ 3.60rpo. Neesham also chimed in with 10* in the drawn game between Essex and Derbyshire.

Matt Quinn continues to chip away with wickets for Kent with another drawn game vs Sussex. Quinn bowled 15ov @ 1.73rpo in the first innings, hit a cheeky 11 and then took 3w @ 4.91rpo in 24ov. Quinn took 3 of Kent's 4w in the second inning with Sussex declaring 4-wickets-down to set up the contest and after sealing a permanent move to Kent, Quinn now has 6w in two games.

Fun fact: Quinn made his FC debut alongside Chris Martin for Auckland, playing against Central Districts who had Jeet Raval, Ross Taylor and Mathew Sinclair in their batting line up.

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