2022/23 Ford Trophy: Henry Shipley, Tom Blundell and Central Districts Class
Ford Trophy cricket is underway with the two best Plunket Shield teams Canterbury and Central District's grabbing wins. Canterbury batted first against Wellington and put up 267/8 thanks to Tom Latham's 59 runs, Cole McConchie's 40 runs, Leo Carter's 67* and some lower order hitting from Henry Shipley and Matt Henry.
Michael Snedden was the best bower for Wellington with 3w @ 6.2rpo and Ollie Newton also took 2w @ 5.85rpo. Wellington could only muster 165 from 28.1 overs as Tom Blundell hit 58 runs @ 165.71sr at the top of the order and no other Wellington batter scored 15+ runs apart from Newton whacking 44 runs @ 176sr down the order.
Blundell is in a groove for Wellington and as the Firebirds batting unit isn't scoring many runs, Blundell is delivering Most Valuable Player mahi. This was on display in Wellington's loss to Canterbury and their Plunket Shield first stanza where Blundell was the only Wellington batter to serve up two 50+ scores in four games.
Tom Blundell's summer so far
Plunket Shield: 8inns, 388 runs @ 48.5avg/74.9sr, 2 x 100, 2 x 50
Ford Trophy: 1inns, 58 runs @ 58avg/165.71sr, 1 x 50
Only two lads have 200+ runs with strike-rates over 60 in PS. Blundell has the highest strike-rate of the 17 lads who scored over 200 runs and the leading PS run-scorer Cole McConchie scored his 452 runs @ 60.26sr. Blundell's swift knock against Canterbury follows his excellent start to the summer and despite the need for Wellington to find runs elsewhere, Blundell's batting is super funky.
What happens when a fragile Wellington batting line up meets Henry Shipley? Shipley takes 6w and continues his freaky antics. Here is Shipley's summer so far...
PS vs Otago: 0w @ 4rpo, 82 runs @ 85.41sr, 2w @ 2.36rpo
PS vs Auckland: 5w @ 3.46rpo, 49 runs @ 116.66sr, 1w @ 1.4rpo
FT vs Wellington: 25 runs @ 92.59sr, 6w @ 5rpo
List-A cricket is Shipley's worst format, although he's low key bonkers in the other formats...
First-Class: 25.59avg batting, 27.5avg bowling
List-A: 22.7avg batting, 47.51avg bowling
T20: 19.4avg batting (142.64sr), 23.86avg bowling
Central went down to Otago and bowled the Volts out for 157. Seth Rance, Brett Randell, Blair Tickner and Ajaz Patel all took 2+ wickets. Central raced to victory thanks to Dane Cleaver's 99* @ 139.43sr and Will Young chimed in with 37*.
In seven innings of PS batting, Cleaver didn't pass 25 runs. This came after Cleaver played seven T20I games during the European tour, scoring 118 runs @ 29.5avg/126.88sr in his five innings. Cleaver also batted third in his lone ODI appearance against Scotland (32 runs) and this amplifies Aotearoa's wicket-keeping depth as Cleaver is joined by Blundell and Tim Seifert in battling for Blackcaps opportunities.
Central have a fabulous team at their disposal right now, but don't overlook Young's class. Young has a LA record of 39.81avg after 80 games and he scored a century in his two games last season, also scored two centuries in three games against Netherlands. Young had scores of 1, 0 and 3 in ODIs against Ireland during the European tour to balance out his run-scoring. In England’s One-Day Cup, Young scored 345 runs @ 49.28avg with a century and two 50+ scores in eight innings.
Young is likely to be available for a decent FT stint and this also applies to Cleaver, who only played one FT game last season. Central made the final despite these two combining for three games last season, which stems from a strong bowling attack and jokers like Luteru Taylor hitting 279 runs @ 137.43sr.
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