The most intriguing Blackcaps T20 yarn won't be in Bangladesh over the next few weeks, no matter how many fun kiwi cricket prospects are rocking the black cap. There are a trio of kiwis playing in the Caribbean Premier League and as Colin Munro's mahi in T20 leagues around the world holds no relevance to Blackcaps selections, plus Glenn Phillips may be building a perch as Aotearoa's best T20 cricket right now; this is all about Tim Seifert leading into the T20 World Cup.

Seifert and Phillips serve as a solid comparison. Both love to stroke boundaries and as both have history as wicket-keepers, they have a punchy style to their attacking shots. These attacking instincts catch the eye, yet the solid work in Aotearoa's Plunket Shield really commanded my attention. Seifert has a First-Class average of 36.40 (49sr) and Phillips cruises around with 38.12avg (62sr), both with suitable longform strike-rates which signal quality batsmen who can wiggle through the formats.

Seifert averaged 50.21 in the 2017/18 Plunket Shield and has a PS century in five of the last six summers. Phillips made his Test debut in Australia as a late call up and hit 52 in a gritty knock (43sr). Both have showcased their class as batsmen in different formats and both could be key Blackcaps to take the kiwis beyond this golden era. Right now though Phillips has moved himself beyond Seifert and while Phillips is the brewing as a key figure for Aotearoa at the T20 World Cup there, there is an interesting trend emerging in Seifert's mahi.

All of the information below revolves around Seifert's T20 career strike-rates. In T20 internationals Seifert scores with 133.14sr and in T20 cricket that drops slightly to 128.58sr, which gives us a mark of 130sr to provide context. There is also a small gap in Seifert's averages with 24.82avg in internationals and 25.50 in T20 leagues. A batsman with a T20 record of 25avg/130r is generally going to be pretty damn good (roughly 25 runs off 19 balls).

Here are Seifert's recent T20 strike-rates in leagues and series...

2020 CPL: 109.91sr.

2020 T20I vs West Indies: 134.61sr.

2020 T20I vs Pakistan: 139.68sr.

2020 Super Smash: 115.63sr.

2021 T20I vs Australia: 62.79sr.

2021 CPL: 70.37sr (two games so far)

Everything was stock standard and kinda fantastic for Seifert in T20 internationals across 2020 as Seifert hit four 50+ knocks in 10 innings with 50.28avg/140.23sr (including the series vs India to start 2020). The only note here is that all these games were in Aotearoa and the Blackcaps jacked up big numbers in wins over West Indies and Pakistan. As Seifert opened in every game of those two series to finish 2020, this version of Seifert and his wicket-keeping balance would have been a factor in bumping Munro out of the mix.

The weird thing though is that in levels below Blackcaps T20 cricket, Seifert's strike-rates are all below 120 and he wasn't a dominant force. Based on Seifert's fluency for Aotearoa, one would expect Seifert to be a force in the Super Smash where the conditions are the same and bowlers aren't as good. That seems to have flowed into the series against Australia where Seifert scored 27 runs with an average of 6.75, which led to him being pushed down the order for the last game after opening in the first four games vs Australia.

Two games into the CPL and Seifert has 38 runs @ 70.37sr. This does feature scores of 23 and 15 which are handy knocks, yet they definitely aren't slick Seifert knocks and they instead fall into alignment with what Seifert did in the CPL last year (22.16avg/109.91sr). This makes Seifert's CPL mahi an intriguing thing to keep tabs on as conditions in the Caribbean are more similar to United Arab Emirates where the T20 World Cup will be played and literally all of Seifert's good T20I work for the Blackcaps has been in Aotearoa...

In Aotearoa: 29 games, 29.36avg/137.44sr.

In Sri Lanka: 3 games, 12.66avg/88.37sr.

In UAE: 3 games, 3.66avg/122.22sr.

Seifert has only played six games outside Aotearoa and in those are in alignment with Seifert's work in T20 leagues outside Aotearoa - CPL. Seifert is part of the Kolkata Indian Premier League squad under coach Brendon McCullum and didn't play a game last year, while yet to play a game this year. The CPL intrigue will set the tone before we check in with Seifert in the IPL where Seifert is one of three wicket-keeper/batsmen along with Indian veterans Dinesh Karthik and Sheldon Jackson for Kolkata.

Speaking of wicket-keeping, all of this is fascinating because Seifert was the only bloke with the (wk) nod in the Blackcaps T20 World Cup squad naming. After the Australian series, Seifert didn't play in the Bangladesh T20I series to wrap up the kiwi summer and Devon Conway played as the wicket-keeper while Finn Allen took Seifert's opening role. Phillips is another wicket-keeping option, however his speed and intensity in the field is notable plus Phillips is now an off-spinner who could contribute in UAE conditions.

Not only is Seifert lacking his swashbuckling T20 batting, the Blackcaps depth is such that he is competing with Phillips, Conway, Martin Guptill, Kane Williamson, Mark Chapman, Daryl Mitchell and Jimmy Neesham for batting roles. Allen snapped up his chance in that series vs Bangladesh, then reinforced that with strong work in England and he's not even part of the World Cup squad.

All of which could be rectified with significant CPL runs from Seifert. This slow start may be a case of Seifert taking stock of conditions and CPL vibes, although there is a trend of Seifert struggling to operate at his general T20 strike-rate that has seen him rise through the ranks quickly. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately from an inspirational perspective, Seifert's CPL mahi will be directly compared to that of Phillips who is currently basking in T20 form. All while a group of kiwi cricketers are playing T20I cricket in Bangladesh.

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