The Plunket Shield's first stanza has finished and with Ford Trophy swining into the schedule, let's dive into a Plunket Shield First Stanza All Stars team. Every team has a win after their four games played while Canterbury, Central Districts and Wellington have two wins each. Canterbury are chillin' as the best PS team of the first stanza and they are the only team without a loss so far.

Tom Latham, Will Young, Bharat Popli, Tom Bruce, Cole McConchie, Tom Blundell, Michael Rippon, Doug Bracewell, Matt Henry, Ajaz Patel, Jacob Duffy.

Plunket Shield All Star teams are designed to lay out the best players of that phase, although vibe and Blackcaps mana are also factors. This holistic perspective led to the selections of Blackcaps Test openers Tom Latham and Will Young, as well as Ajaz Patel. Latham sits fifth for runs and with two centuries in five innings, Latham is the best opening batter in PS.

Young on the other hand is a bit further down the run-scoring charts, sitting 11th with a century and two 50+ scores. Northern's opening duo of Henry Cooper and Jeet Raval both have more runs than Young, so does Wellington opener Rachin Ravindra. Young's Blackcaps mana gives him the selection nod and he is low key brewing as a longform opener after back to back County Championship tours providing ample development.

Latham (43.81avg) and Young (40.25avg) have First-Class averages over 40 from 100+ games. Latham has 25 FC hundies and 51 scores of 50+, while Young has quietly stacked up 14 FC hundies and 41 scores over 50.

Patel also benefits from this selection vibe. Sitting 17th for wickets, Patel is behind Otago's Michael Rippon and Auckland's Will Somerville for spin wickets. The all-round excellence of Rippon boosts his value and along with Doug Bracewell's steady mahi, these two provide solid all-round variety. Somerville is only one wicket behind Rippon and selecting Patel over Somerville stems from Patel's mana, his solid mahi and a game-winning baggy of 5w against Northern.

Ponder the status of PS spin ahead of the Test summer. Two spinners have been selected in this first stanza All Stars team and most teams operated with two spinners. Some even deployed three specialist spinners and others had a big donnie spinner along with batters who bowl spin. Northern have given overs to Joe and Fred Walker, Tim Pringle, Cooper and Raval for example. Auckland used Somerville and Adithya Ashok together for one game, then gave overs to both O'Donnell brothers alongside Somerville.

Every team is rolling with multiple spin options in Aotearoa, early in the summer. Seam is always highly influential and spinners aren't taking that shine away from seamers, they are playing low key roles though. The prospect of two lefty spinners is far too funky to overlook for this All Stars team and any combination of spinners, perhaps even selecting just one of the Rippon/Somerville/Patel group is all good.

Three seamers have taken 20+ wickets and they are all locked in for All Stars mahi. Matt Henry is the best bowler of the first stanza with the most wickets, the lowest economy rate and best bowling strike-rate of the leading wicket-takers. Jacob Duffy is a wicket behind Henry and he is building on his dose of County Championship cricket this winter, while Doug Bracewell is third for wickets and Central's best bowler.

Stack this seaming crop on top of the spinning observation. While Blackcaps were playing T20 World Cup and then T20Is against India, three seamers who are scattered across Blackcaps depth are leading PS bowlers for wickets. Henry is a certified ODI/Test Blackcap, Duffy is chasing more opportunities and Bracewell may be one of the best plug-and-play depth options in Aotearoa.

Henry, Duffy and Bracewell are all experienced cricketers who are comfortable with themselves and their standing in Aotearoa cricket. Duffy is the youngest of this trio and he made his FC debut in 2012, which serves as an interesting marker when assessing the middle class abundance of kiwi cricket.

The batting unit below the Test openers is Bharat Popli, Tom Bruce, Cole McConchie and Tom Blundell. Blundell is sizzling this summer, sitting alongside Latham and Henry as Test cricketers who are dominating PS. Blundell is fourth for runs with two centuries and two 50+ scores, while scoring his runs with a strike-rate of 74.90; Blundell has the highest strike-rate of the 17 batters with 200+ runs.

Popli is second for runs and this is his third season in a row averaging over 40, scoring centuries in consecutive summers for the first time in his 10 seasons. Bruce was first for PS runs last summer and is now third, with McConchie leading all batters for runs this season.

Everyone in the first stanza All Stars has played for Aotearoa except for Popli. Even if Somerville was selected ahead of Patel this would still be the case. Henry Cooper, Brad Schmulian and Thorn Parkes are the only lads in a group of 11 who have scored 250+ runs, who have not played for Aotearoa. This is the middle class of Aotearoa cricket that has foundations of experience, maturity and skill.

• Tom Latham: 5inns, 361 runs @ 90.25avg, 2 x 100

• Will Young: 7inns, 250 runs @ 35.71avg, 1 x 100, 2 x 50

• Bharat Popli: 8inns, 395 runs @ 56.42avg, 1 x 100, 3 x 50

• Tom Bruce: 7inns, 390 runs @ 55.71avg, 1 x 100, 3 x 50

• Cole McConchie: 5inns, 452 runs @ 90.4avg, 2 x 100, 1 x 50

• Tom Blundell: 8inns, 388 runs @ 48.5avg, 2 x 100, 2 x 50

• Michael Rippon: 7inns, 234 runs @ 39avg, 3 x 50 | 96.5ov, 15w @ 28.13avg/4.35rpo

• Doug Bracewell: 6inns, 175 runs @ 29.16avg, 1 x 50 | 121.5ov, 20w @ 17.55avg/2.88rpo

• Matt Henry: 134.1ov, 23w @ 11.69avg/2rpo

• Ajaz Patel: 100.1ov, 9w @ 33.77avg/3rpo

• Jacob Duffy: 149.1ov, 22w @ 21.36avg/3.15rpo

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