2021 Kiwi County Tour: Bowling Tings (Hat-Trick Homies)
As Devon Conway takes the piss in England and Glenn Phillips transforms into off-spinning G-Philly, two of Aotearoa's hostile seamers in Lockie Ferguson and Adam Milne grabbed headlines with hat-tricks to finish the first stanza of T20 Blast cricket. With a T20 World Cup lurking on the horizon, these T20 Blast performances ramp up some of the Blackcaps funk and there ain't much better than having two speedsters competing for 1st 11 spots.
Hat-tricks are nice and all, although there's deeper matters to assess here. Milne may be one of the more interesting kiwi cricketers as he has often battled injury which limits his game time, then when he is playing Milne is often out of sight and thus out of mind. Chuck in performances that make it hard to truly gauge where Milne is at right now and we have ourselves an intriguing T20 bowler to keep tabs on.
In last year's BBL, Milne had a similar moment to this recent hat-trick where he bowled 4 overs @ 1.50rpo with a wicket for Sydney Thunder. 1.50rpo in a T20 game is fantastic for a bowler, while Milne's overall BBL campaign wrapped up with 5w @ 66.60avg/7.56rpo.
Milne was then impressive in returning to the Blackcaps T20I team against Bangladesh with 3w in 5ov @ 19.33avg/11.60rpo.
Milne then played one Indian Premier League game for Mumbai Indians with 3ov @ 11rpo - Trent Boult took 3w @ 7.63rpo in the same game for Mumbai.
Then we have the the T20 Blast where Milne has only played two of the 11 games (not sure why) Milne's first game saw him bowl 3ov @ 11.66rpo without a wicket, then his hat-trick was part of a 4-wicket haul to take Milne to 4w @ 18.25avg/10.50rpo.
Intriguing because it's all over the show. Milne's whole angle in last summer's BBL was how economical he was in a good Sydney Thunder team, then Milne conceded over 10rpo in the next three stages of his T20 journey. The T20I work vs Bangladesh was decent, while most Blackcaps enjoyed lovely stats last summer. The IPL work is tricky when you're popping up for one game in Indian conditions against high-powered batting line ups. The T20 Blast work has the hat-trick headline act with a expensive under-belly in the other game.
Hence, it's tricky to assess where Milne is at. One must consider that Milne is in high demand around the T20 landscape and that's a nod in favour of Milne. At the same time Milne's last 10 T20 games feature five games with 0 wickets, three games with 1 wicket and two games with 2+ wickets? That's eight of 10 games with 1w or less, all while steadily conceding more than 10rpo.
Take that, let it simmer and we'll see what Lockie Ferguson's up to...
Ferguson's hat-trick takes him to 14w @ 19.21avg/7.27rpo in the T20 Blast.
Like Milne, Ferguson played two T20I games vs Bangladesh with 3w @ 12.66avg/6.33rpo.
If we include Ferguson's work vs West Indies late last year to the Bangladesh series, Ferguson's summer rounds off at 10w @ 9.40avg/6.26rpo.
Here's how Milne and Ferguson compare in the two T20 formats…
T20I
Ferguson: 13.16avg/6.86rpo/11.50sr.
Milne: 21.39avg/7.69rpo/16.60sr
T20
Ferguson: 23.93avg/7.52rpo/19sr.
Milne: 24.11avg/7.77rpo/18.60sr.
Key thing here is that Aotearoa has two hostile seamers who are both gathering T20 reps around the world and when pondering Blackcaps T20 implications, the presence of these two competing against each other for selection can only be good. Both have also played plenty of T20 cricket in India and that will set them up nicely even though the World Cup has been moved to United Arab Emirates - where conditions are similar.
There's a theme in this yarn of the headline and the deeper understanding. There haven't been a whole lot of recent Kyle Jamieson headlines as Jamieson has 1w in his five games of T20 Blast (9.54rpo), yet the same idea applies here as Jamieson's one of the hottest seamers in the world and yet he can't really hang with Dutch international Logan van Beek right now.
Van Beek is one of nine bowlers with 15+ wickets in T20 Blast; 15w @ 22.53avg/9.70rpo/13.9sr.
Keep in mind that van Beek finished 3rd in Super Smash bowling last summer; 13w @ 25.15avg/7.78rpo/19.3sr.
Jamieson vs van Beek actually stacks up fairly nicely in T20 cricket…
Jamieson: 25.23avg/8.53rpo/17.70sr.
van Beek: 27.15avg/8.83rpo/18.40sr.
The beauty here is that we can celebrate van Beek as a Netherlands international alongside Dutch-kiwi Max O'Dowd. Jamieson will be a huge Blackcaps T20I factor, especially considering his hearty mahi in his first IPL campaign this year and hopefully we will continue to see van Beek be an instrumental figure in the rise of Dutch cricket.
Headlines and deeper understanding. On the surface it appears as though the Blackcaps reached a cricket pinnacle where a group of Aotearoa's best cricketers ever to come together with certain stars aligning to lead them to WTC glory. The deeper understanding here is that Aotearoa genuinely has 20-25 cricketers competing for T20 World Cup selection. Aotearoa has two very nifty T20 spinners in Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi, I've mentioned three fairly enticing x-factor seamers in Ferguson, Milne and Jamieson to keep an eye on as well. Never forget that Trent Boult and Tim Southee are high quality T20 bowlers themselves.
All-rounders? Daryl Mitchell, Colin de Grandhomme and Jimmy Neesham are all in the mix.
We now have a bunch of lads playing County Championship cricket as I'm typing this and I will pop back around for proper Kiwi County Tour action. In wrapping up these T20 Blast batting and bowling angles, it's become clear that many of the same conditions (experience, skill, depth) that led to WTC glory are present in the Blackcaps T20 camp. That's bloody exciting.
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