Northern already have their Super Smash final spot locked in, leaving Canterbury and Wellington to do battle in Thursday's eliminator in Dunedin. These two teams haven't played each other in 2022 as their two games against each other came on November 26 which Wellington won by 27 runs and then December 19 which Canterbury won by 6 wickets. Wellington's win came in Canterbury and Canterbury's win came in Wellington, plus Wellington didn't play a game in Dunedin while Canterbury's last outing game was against Otago in Dunedin.

That translates to a fairly even lay out, slightly favouring Canterbury as they last played in Dunedin. Canterbury also finished second to Northern with a 7-3 record while Wellington sealed third with a 5-5 record. Since losing their first game to Wellington, Canterbury only lost games to Northern and are 3-1 in their last four games. Wellington are 2-2 in their last four games with both losses coming against Northern.

20 Super Smash blokes have 8+ wickets. Canterbury have four of them while Wellington have three, which can then be split further with Canterbury having Henry Shipley and Ed Nuttall ranked top-3 for bowlers while Wellington have no bowler in the top-8.

Canterbury's Best Bowlers

Henry Shipley: 2nd - 15 w @ 7.51rpo/10.8sr.

Ed Nuttall: 3rd - 15w @ 9.14rpo/13.6sr.

Matt Henry: 10th - 12w @ 7.68rpo/16sr.

Todd Astle: 13th - 10w @ 6.38rpo/21.6sr.

Wellington's Best Bowlers

Ben Sears: 9th - 13w @ 8.42rpo/12.9sr.

Logan van Beek: 16th - 10w @ 7.69rpo/21.6sr.

Hamish Bennett: 18th - 9w @ 8.12rpo/21.3sr.

Cole McConchie will be an interesting factor for the Cantabs in trying to tie up Wellington's batters during the middle stages in tandem with Todd Astle. Astle's been tidy and has the best economy rate of the bowlers listed above, while McConchie hasn't quite been at his best with 5w @ 7.43rpo/38.4sr. McConchie will likely be Canterbury's fifth bowler and how Wellington aprroach his overs could be crucial.

Wellington have similar funk in which bowlers will be most effective alongside their trio of frontline seamers. Jimmy Neesham has 6w in 13 overs (13sr) and this is the same efficient vibe as his T20I mahi (18.1sr) and T20 career mahi (16.7sr). Spinners Peter Younghusband (6.44rpo) and Michael Bracewell (6.84rpo) are also key in building pressure for the likes of Neesham to bag wickets.

Rachin Ravindra has 2w @ 6.90rpo/30sr in his 10ov. That's three Wellington spinners conceding less than 7rpo.

20 batters have scored 170+ runs. Canterbury have three, while Wellington have two plus van Beek is right behind that marker with 160 runs. The funk here is that Tom Latham and Daryl Mitchell have been fantastic in limited game time, thus haven't had the chance to stack up big runs and Henry Nicholls could also be a factor if he plays. Wellington have a similar vibe as Devon Conway, Tom Blundell and Ravindra have had limited game time and while they aren't among the best batters in the Super Smash, all these Blackcaps will be factors in a knockout game.

Canterbury's Best Batters

Chad Bowes: 5th - 263 runs @ 26.30avg/146.11sr.

Cameron Fletcher: 8th - 233 runs @ 38.83avg/146.54sr.

Cole McConchie: 20th - 170 runs @ 21.25avg/120.56sr.

Wellington's Best Batters

Michael Bracewell: 1st - 397 runs @ 79.40avg/148.68sr.

Finn Allen: 3rd - 268 runs @ 26.80avg/197.05sr.

Latham has Canterbury's highest batting strike-rate (176.31sr) and Mitchell's cruising along with 161.25sr. These two will be highly influential in providing the same oomph that Wellington get from Allen who had a strike-rate of 193.93 last summer and is again nudging 200sr.

If Canterbury were without their Blackcaps, then I'd chuck the leadership advantage towards Wellington via Bracewell being my favourite leader in Aotearoa cricket. Latham and Mitchell even this out though, setting up a fascinating battle among a group of cricketers who have been shuffled up into the young-veteran bucket.

Bracewell is not only in hot form having stormed his way to the leading run-scorer spot, he has numerous match winning knocks and leads a team vibe that is nicely suited to high pressure cricket. Canterbury's skipper McConchie hasn't been in great form with bat or ball, but is a nifty operator as captain and has created a winning environment himself. McConchie's lack of production is off-set by the presence of Latham, Mitchell and maybe Nicholls.

The most important thing in assessing domestic cricket and cricketers is catching a winning vibe - which players step up to win games for their team? There are Blackcaps involved, hearty domestic troopers hunting higher honours and hot youngsters who can shake up the landscape. How players from these layers contribute to winning is the low key nugget to ponder as these two teams compete to face Northern in Hamilton on Saturday.

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