2022 Plunket Shield: The Blackcaps Mixer (Wellington vs Northern, Central vs Canterbury)
Wellington join Otago as the winners of Plunket Shield round tahi with their sneaky win over Northern Districts, while Central Districts and Canterbury played out a draw. There were a bunch of big donnie performances across the opening round of Plunket Shield and as many of them came from Blackcaps or fringe Blackcaps, that's the theme of this debrief.
Wellington enjoyed centuries from Rachin Ravindra (126) and Tom Blundell (102) in their first innings, before Blundell backed it up with 68 runs in the second dig. While Wellington's bowlers stepped up with the bat to drag their team to victory, Blundell was their highest scorer in the second innings. Blundell shuffled the game along nicely as he cracked 102 runs @ 99sr, then 68 runs @ 93sr and his mahi in the second innings ensured Wellington had some wiggle room in their run-chase.
Blundell averages 59.70 in Test cricket this year.
Ravindra's century came in his regular opening slot for Wellington and he continues to simmer since dropping out of Blackcaps 1st 11 business. Ravindra toured India with Aotearoa 'A' last month and his eight innings on tour saw him pass 50 once, with two scores over 40.
Prior to that tour, Ravindra hit 217 and 46* for Durham in a game that featured five centuries and four more 50+ scores. Two of those centuries were scored by Durham bowlers for more context around Ravindra's hefty knock and he has started this summer with a century. Ravindra averaged 38.11 last season and now averages 40.54 in First-Class cricket.
As Wellington were creeping towards victory, Neil Wagner bowled 16 overs @ 2.63rpo without a wicket. Wagner took 1w @ 2.58 in 19ov during the first innings and Wagner has taken no wickets in two of his last three Plunket Shield innings. Wagner averaged 39 with the ball last season and Wagner is averaging 30.94 across five Tests this year; Wagner's first year averaging 30+ since 2018.
Like Wellington's bowlers creeping towards victory, Wagner's dip in wicket-taking is a low key wrinkle creeping into the domestic summer. Wagner and Colin de Grandhomme combined for 3 wickets in this loss, while Matt Fisher sparked his summer up with 3w and 5w for Northern. Fisher also featured in the A-A tour of India where he took 7w in four innings.
Fisher only played one PS game last season (2w @ 44avg) and now he's the only Northern bowler taking 4+ wickets in their first game. Despite A-A struggling to win in India, Fisher and Jacob Duffy both featured on that tour before taking 8w to start their kiwi summer. Duffy has been brewing for much longer than Fisher and the slippery Northern seamer needs to stack up consistent wickets to further embed himself in the Blackcaps mixer.
The Aotearoa wicket-keeping realm is tightly packed with talent. Blundell laid out the baseline standard and Tim Seifert is chasing a return to Blackcaps mahi. Seifert averaged 10.66 in three PS games last season and while Seifert is viewed as a limited-overs Blackcaps option, PS is where Seifert flashes his batting class. Seifert's 69 runs in the second innings for Northern is a solid start to the summer.
Northern also enjoyed runs from Jeet Raval (54), Henry Cooper (56, 90) and Bharat Popli (75, 127*). All three have dominated PS cricket at some point and for Popli, that was back in 2015/16 when he scored three centuries and seven 50+ scores to average 67.58 across 10 games. Popli then maintained a decent level in the next four seasons, but this century is his first since that dominant summer.
Wellington's veteran seamer Ian McPeake sits as the leading wicket-taker so far after taking 4w and 5w against Northern. McPeake will be a fulcrum of Wellington's bowling attack this season and he took 12w @ 27.83avg last season, averaging 29 after 49 FC games.
Central and Canterbury played out a draw with Tom Latham putting up the biggest score of the round. Latham hit 167 for Canterbury and this signals a quiet return to four-day cricket for Latham as he's coming from a diet of ODIs. Latham averaged 40+ in three consecutive years of Test batting (2017-19) and is now averaging below 40 for the third consecutive year, which is countered by solid ODI mahi from Latham.
Latham averaged below 40 for four consecutive years (2016-19) and is now averaging 40+ in ODIs for the third year in a row. Aotearoa has had a wonky ODI schedule but Latham has been efficient and Aotearoa will need Latham's world-class opening grit in Test cricket later this summer.
Canterbury also had skipper Cole McConchie score 78, Leo Carter hit 52 and Mitch Hay scored 64 as wicket-keeper. Hay scored 62 in his PS debut last season and now has two 50+ scores in his first two games.
Canterbury only batted once against Central thanks to Latham, leaving Matt Henry to gather wickets as he tends to do in Canterbury's two bowling innings. Henry took 4w and 3w against Central, taking him to 14 consecutive innings with a wicket across Tests, ODIs, County Championship and PS. Henry has taken 2+ wickets in each of his last seven innings.
Last summer, Henry took 21w @ 17.76avg. While Henry is a wicket-taking monster, he also leads a Canterbury seam attack that can't be overlooked. Henry, Fraser Sheat and Sean Davey all have FC bowling averages in the mid-20s and Will O'Rourke is only four games into his career...
Matt Henry: 24.42avg
Fraser Sheat: 24.76avg
Sean Davey: 25.68avg
Will O'Rourke: 29.09avg
Latham's Test opening partner Will Young started his summer with a knock of 57. Young is coming off back to back County Championship stints, averaging 39.71 and 37.33 in the last two years.
Tom Bruce hit back to back double bangers last summer, then five scores below 20 on tour in India. Bruce settled back into Aotearoa with a second innings 74 for Central.
Central rolled out a hearty bowling attack of Doug Bracewell, Blair Tickner, Brett Randell, Ray Toole and Ajaz Patel. They only took 9w against Canterbury though and Tickner's return to PS after dabbling in Blackcaps T20I mahi resulted in 23ov @ 4.26rpo without a wicket. Patel took 2w in this draw with Canterbury and he will be fizzing to improve on last season's 8w @ 43.75avg.
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Peace and love.