Aotearoa encountered their first T20 World Cup blip in losing to England. Tomorrow Aotearoa faces Ireland in a game they need to win and should win. Here are some Blackcaps T20I notes to peruse and ponder...

This yarn highlights Blackcaps softness in Test and ODI cricket. The sneaky narrative throughout T20WC content has been Aotearoa's T20I excellence and if that simmering excellence is flipped into a loss against Ireland, the softness idea continues.

Blackcaps tend to perform well against weaker nations and they defeated Ireland 3-0 in T20Is earlier this year. This game will be played in Adelaide and Adelaide will also host a semi-final, as well as Sydney. The final will be played in Melbourne and all these locations should offer a splash of swing which will help Aotearoa. That starts against Ireland in Adelaide where teams have scored less than 150 runs in three of the four innings.

22-ish (rain influenced) games have been played and teams have hit 200 runs just twice. Aotearoa reached that mark against Australia and South Africa hit 205/5 against Bangladesh. 150 runs is a decent total in this T20WC and this reality bounces up against the T20 fantasy of smacking sixes everywhere for massive totals.

This suits Aotearoa. This also frames Kane Williamson's mahi as he does not need to go bonkers. More importantly, Williamson plays his role and this involves him steering Blackcaps batting while the sluggers target boundaries. Williamson has a strike-rate of 93.42 which is low, yet it is absorbed by the power and funk around him.

As of Thursday morning, Aotearoa has five batters in a group of 19 with strike-rates over 150 at this tournament. Aotearoa has five, no other nation has more than three.

Williamson had a strike-rate of 93.51 at the Indian Premier League this year, as well as his lowest IPL average (19.64) of his eight cash-guzzling excursions. For many cricket fans around the world, Williamson's current mahi fits into the narrative of his batting in the IPL.

Meanwhile, Williamson hit 59 runs @ 155.26sr in the tri-series final vs Pakistan and he had an overall strike-rate of 121.69 in that tri-series. Williamson hit 85 runs @ 177sr in the T20WC final last year and finished as Aotearoa's best batter, hitting 216 runs @ 43.2avg/115.5sr.

I don't expect Williamson to explode with these kind of innings at this T20WC. He is likely to grind through innings as a crafty batter holding the batting unit together.

Zoning in on Williamson overlooks the other lads who didn't do their job. Since defeating Australia, Finn Allen has scores of 1 and 16 while Devon Conway has scores of 1 and 3.

Daryl Mitchell's injection has resulted in 25 runs @ 86.2sr. Along with both openers struggling, this is the most notable hole in the batting unit. Mitchell opened at last year's tournament with 140.5sr and he has a T20I career strike-rate of 138.33 batting in a range of positions.

Having two batters below 100sr is an issue and Mitchell hasn't fired after being a mid-tournament inclusion. Even if Mitchell is slightly below par, the Blackcaps batting recipe can still work all good.

Glenn Phillips stat check…

T20I Career: 34.37avg/147.56sr.

2022 T20Is: 52.25avg/155.97sr.

Last T20WC Lockie Ferguson didn't play, this T20WC he has 4w @ 9.09rpo. Ferguson is the only Blackcaps bowler conceding more than 7rpo.

Ferguson has taken 5w @ 4.8rpo against Ireland in T20Is.

Ferguson's economy rate drops from 8.8rpo when bowling first to 6.59rpo when bowling second.

Trent Boult and Mitchell Santner have exactly the same mahi: 12ov, 6w @ 12.83avg/6.41rpo.

Ish Sodhi has 6w @ 14avg/7.63rpo against Ireland in T20Is.

Tim Southee is now tied with Shakib Al Hasan for most T20I wickets (127). Sodhi is tied for fourth with Lasith Malinga (107).

Allen is seventh for highest T20I batting strike-rates (165) and Neesham is eighth (163.1).

Conway is second for highest T20I batting averages (51.85). Virat Kohli is first (53.13) and Mihammad Rizwan is third (50.54). These three are the only batters in the world with T20I batting averages over 50.

Aotearoa is 14-4 in T20Is this year.

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