Northern Districts are defending Super Smash champions, who also finished mid-table in Plunket Shield and Ford Trophy in a solid campaign last summer. Northern bid ka kite to Ish Sodhi as he made a move to Canterbury after almost a decade of service to ND, while last season's leading Plunket Shied bowler Brett Randell also dips south as he seeks more opportunities with Central Districts. Having built a solid system around their Blackcaps, Northern are well equipped to absorb those losses and keep building.

Two blokes who are not in Northern's contracted player list are Neil Wagner and Colin de Grandhomme. Despite sitting outside these contract boundaries, Wagner and de Grandhomme will be intriguing blokes in the domestic circuit as they are likely to play plenty of Plunket Shield cricket to start the season. De Grandhomme has no contract in Aotearoa (like Jimmy Neesham) and he was low key batting monster last summer for Northern...

Plunket Shield: 45.33avg/66sr.
Ford Trophy: 46.66avg/114.75sr.
Super Smash: 30avg/143sr.

De Grandhomme also took 10w @ 23.10avg in PS, barely bowling in the other formats. Wagner continues his avant-garde journey as he didn't play FT or SS and only played two PS games, scattered among four Test appearances last summer. Since June last year, Wagner has played just 10 games of cricket and they have all been longform games. Wagner's last outing was the third Test against England, after Wagner was overlooked for selection in the first two Tests.

While Wagner has a Blackcaps contract, he barely plays. This sets up a curious summer for Wagner as he is likely to be fizzing for action and he could embrace more FT/SS mahi for Northern. At the very least, Wagner and de Grandhomme will be rocking their whites in the coming weeks and they will probably be playing in your neck of the woods so check them out.

Jeet Raval and Anurag Verma are grizzly leaders for Northern, joined by Scott Kuggeleijn and Tim Seifert who have slid out of Blackcaps squads recently. Seifert has fallen behind Dane Cleaver as a T20I wicket-keeping option and in 21 innings across the domestic season, Seifert had two scores over 50.

While Seifert's T20 confidence will be a wrinkle to track later in the summer, his PS mahi has fallen away and this could be a better indicator of his struggles. Seifert averaged 10.66 last season and als o popped up for a County Championship game for Sussex where he had two scores of 5 runs. Last summer was Seifert's first PS campaign without a 50+ score since his debut season in 2014/15.

Northern also have Bharat Popli, Henry Cooper, Katene Clarke and Joe Carter in their batting department. Carter was recently in India with Aotearoa 'A' where he hit two centuries in three longform games (347 runs @ 69.5avg) and he was one of four kiwis who had a 50+ score in the one-dayers; Carter only played two one-dayers, while the other three lads played all three games.

Carter averaged 40+ in three of his last four First-Class summers, dropping down to 31.33avg last season. That is off-set by Carter averaging 51.25 in FT last season and now Carter enters the kiwi summer as the best batter from that Indian tour. While Carter has been humming in PS and steadily improving in FT, he also enjoyed his best SS campaign last summer and if Carter is scoring runs in all formats, he could climb up to the Blackcaps fringes.

Matt Fisher was also part of that Indian tour and he took 4w in his lone four-dayer appearance, as well as 3w in 14 overs of the one-day series. This is notable because Fisher took 7w @ 8.28avg in two games of FT last season, taking him to 21w @ 20.52avg after 10 List-A games. Fisher also took 5w @ 23avg in six Super Smash games and the departure of Randell now opens up opportunities for Fisher.

Kuggeleijn, Verma, Zak Gibson and Brett Hampton will also feature in the seam attack, yet Fisher and Kristian Clarke are the funkiest seamers to watch out for. Clarke made his PS debut last season and took 3w, with scores of 63* and 11* batting 10th. For Clarke's second game he was batting in the middle order and opening the bowling, a swift promotion that saw his output plateau a wee bit in the remaining games of the season. Clarke's potential is obvious and his all-round abilities could see him settle as a regular 1st 11 player.

Offie Joe Walker quietly stepped up to contribute in all formats last season, balancing 18w @ 19.27avg in PS with 16w @ 12.93avg in Northern's SS championship campaign. Walker will get more overs with Sodhi's departure, which will also filter down to lefties Freddie Walker and Tim Pringle.

Northern used 28 players in PS last season as they battled all sorts of pandemic niggle. Northern won SS when graced with their best players and they will be eager to settle down with a core group throughout the summer. Contenders in all formats, Northern may be the funkiest domestic group to follow as the likes of Wagner and de Grandhomme lead the show. Don't overlook the rising talent though as Northern have steadily produced Blackcaps and they have talented prospects rising through their ranks once again.

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