2021/22 Plunket Shield: Auckland And Northern Wins (Again)
Fresh round of Plunket Shield cricket, same Auckland and Northern vibrations. Both teams were winners last round in home territories and flourished in excursions further south. Auckland won their fourth game in a row with an away trip to Otago and Northern defeated Central in Napier. Auckland are the only team with four wins, then Northern and Canterbury have three wins each. Central and Wellington have one win from five games, Otago has one win from six games.
This marks a key juncture in the Plunket Shield as the schedule slides into a better flow while Aotearoa's best cricketers dip out of domestic cricket. The best way to describe the mayhem is that Auckland's played all four of their games since the start of February. Wellington, Canterbury and Central have played one game each during this period. Two games will start on Sunday and a third game will start next Tuesday, providing a round of glorious Plunket Shield cricket will all three teams playing.
In their four games, Auckland has two wins over Otago by a margin of over 150 runs. Auckland batted first and put up 389 via 80 runs from George Worker, 84 runs from Robert O'Donnell and Will Somerville's 54. Jarrod McKay took 4w @ 3.4rpo for Otago along with Jacob Duffy, Travis Muller and Dutch international Michael Rippon taking 2w each.
Nick Kelly's 75 runs and Muller's 65 runs took Otago to 334. Somerville took 4w @ 2.3rpo for Auckland alongside spinners Louis Delport (2w) and Glenn Phillips (1w). Ben Lister also took 2w, Kyle Jamieson's return yielded 1w. Auckland responded with 259/4 led by Will O'Donnell's 70 runs, Phillips cracking 73 runs @ 124and skipper O'Donnell smacking 56* @ 170sr.
Auckland's spin trio sealed victory, taking 8w between them to dismiss Otago for 156 (chasing 315). Delport took 4w, Somerville took 3w and Phillips took 1w. Jamieson and Lister shared a wicket each.
A couple of funky thoughts have intersected during Auckland's winning streak; G-Philly being a nek level cricketer and Aotearoa's late summer spin. Fair play to the seamers across Aotearoa who are snaring big wickets, yet spin is also a major factor while the general perception zones in on the lack of Test spin. Auckland spin trio mahi in PS...
Will Somerville: 114.2ov, 14w @ 15.28avg/1.87rpo.
Louis Delport: 107ov, 7w @ 37.42avg/2.44rpo.
Glenn Phillips: 59.3ov, 8w @ 18avg/2.42rpo.
Delport has only played two games and is one of three Auckland bowlers with 100+ overs tucked away (plus Somerville and Lister). Somerville wasn't effective in India and has responded with hearty mana, leading a young Auckland bowling group through four wins. The trend of Phillips being a freaky triple-threat kinda talent has been slowly cooking in the hangi pit since at least last winter's County Championship/T20 Blast.
Along with the bowling, Phillips had another batting explosion. Phillips now has a PS strike-rate of 131 (averaging 49) and of batters who have scored 200+ runs, Martin Guptill's 74sr is second behind Phillips. Phillips' strike-rate is over 100 in all three formats and that can be bumped up to 110sr; 110.52 in Ford Trophy, 146.29sr in Super Smash.
Auckland has four batters with 200+ runs. One of them is Guptill who didn't play vs Otago, coinciding with Worker hitting his first 50+ score of the campaign. Let's assume Guptill, Phillips and Chapman don't play much in the coming weeks - who are Auckland's best batters?
Rob O'Donnell: 6inns, 372 runs @ 74avg, 1 x 100, 2 x 50.
George Worker: 8inns, 187 runs @ 23avg, 1x 50.
Sean Solia: 4inns, 147 runs @ 37avg, 1 x 50.
Will Somerville: 3inns, 128 runs @ 64avg, 2 x 50.
Will O'Donnell: 4inns, 111 runs @ 28avg, 1 x 50.
Northern batted first vs Central, putting 172 on the board. Colin de Grandhomme slowly eased into his mahi with his 37 runs being Northern's best knock. Doug Bracewell and Ray Toole took 3w each, Blair Tickner and Joey Field took 2w each. Will Young hit 42 runs as Central reached 249 in reply. Kristian Clarke took 3w, while Brett Randell, de Grandhomme and Joe Walker took 2w each. Ish Sodhi snared a wicket too.
Then came de Grandhomme's 164* (70sr). Not a crazy strike-rate, but plenty of boundaries; 11 fours and 7 sixes. Sodhi replicated opener Jeet Raval's knock to lay foundations for de Grandhomme as they had scores of 34 and 30, with strike-rates between 31-34. Toole took 6w for Central, Bracewell chimed in with 2w and Tickner took 1w.
Central were all out for 89 (chasing 224). Field almost won the lowest strike-rate race, scoring 12 runs @ 13.18sr batting #9. Toole did win the lowest strike-rate race batting #11, scoring 1* @ 1.96sr. Tail-ender mana.
Randell took 6w for Northern, de Grandhomme took 3w and Raval grabbed the winning wicket. Sodhi and Walker both conceded less than 1rpo. Praise cricket.
Colin de Grandhomme domestic cricket round up...
Plunket Shield: 7inns, 272 runs @ 45avg/66sr, 1 x 100 | 98ov, 10w @ 23avg/2.35rpo.
Ford Trophy: 3inns, 140 runs @ 47avg/115s, 1 x 100 | 18ov, 2w @ 56avg/6.27rpo.
Super Smash: 10inns, 240 runs @ 30avg/143sr, 2 x 50 | 1ov @ 17rpo.
De Grandhomme has centuries in back to back games and has emerged from the wilderness in delightful fashion. This is led by his batting. A Test century, then a PS century is impressive and we can stack a Ford Trophy century on top of this (Jan 12th) for three centuries in his last 10 games.
Let's stack another log on the pile because de Grandhomme has now bowled in four consecutive games (two Tests included), bowling in seven of eight possible innings. 2w and 3w in this PS win over Central are de Grandhomme's best performances in this period.
The best thing about Northern cricket has been and still is their depth. De Grandhomme will be joined by Sodhi and Tim Seifert in dipping out of PS cricket from Northern's team that played Central. Mitchell Santner and Scott Kuggeleijn will also step out of the mix. The batting will stay solid with Northern's top-four all domestic troopers (Cooper, Raval, Popli, Carter) and Neil Wagner may slide back into trooper-ville.
Kristian Clarke has had an immediate impact in his first two games of PS cricket and now is the time to really tap into his mahi. Joe Walker was a major factor in Northern's Super Smash success and he might be joined by younger bro Freddie if two spinners are required. Joe has been a leading figure in Northern's PS bowling unit this summer along with Randell and this type of depth will make Northern a funky team to track in coming weeks.
Kristian Clarke: 4inns, 100 runs @ 50avg, 1 x 50 | 39.5ov, 6w @ 21avg/3.1rpo.
Joe Walker: 121.3ov, 15w @ 17avg/2rpo.
Brett Randell: 159.4ov, 29w @ 14avg/2.6rpo.
You may have seen Ajaz Patel headlines recently. If you've read all of the above then you deserve to know that while Somerville has returned from India and taken 10+ wickets in all three formats, as well as being Auckland's best or second best wicket-taker in all three formats, Patel has been paddling against the tide. The first issue is that Patel has played just eight games since the second Test vs India in early December.
Second issue is that six of those eight games were SS games. Patel has played one game in FT and PS, which has seen Patel take 3w in 9inns. Patel took more wickets in one innings of Test cricket than he has taken in eight games of cricket, let alone the 15w he took in the series against India.
The lack of cricket and skew towards T20 cricket suggests intrigue rather than wtf. Pandemic travel issues, injury and whatever else could be factors. This provides even more reason to tap into PS cricket as the summer winds down, as well as reason to dive deeper than headlines to find the true funk.
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