After zoning in on Auckland and Northern with their recent Plunket Shield wins, the focus now switches to the two teams they defeated in Canterbury and Wellington. Thanks to three wins late last year, Canterbury (3-1-1) are sitting with Auckland up the top of the PS ladder and their loss to Auckland is their only loss of the season.. Wellington (1-4) on the other hand are rooted to the bottom of the ladder and have now lost four games in a row.

Canterbury's loss to Auckland signals a shift in their PS mahi. Three wins in the PS first stanza came via typical excellence from Tom Latham, Henry Nicholls and Matt Henry. Canterbury's Blackcaps were all in dominant form prior to their Blackcaps summers...

Tom Latham: 4inns, 262 runs @ 87.33avg, 2 x 100.

Henry Nicholls: 3inns, 158 runs @ 52.66avg, 1 x 50.

Matt Henry: 21w @ 17.76avg//2.48rpo.

Canterbury were also without opening batter Chad Bowes for the trip to Auckland, while Cameron Fletcher earned a Blackcaps Test squad promotion on the back of 356 runs @ 59.33avg (1 x 100, 3 x 50) and had scores of 2 and 10 against Auckland. Every team has Blackcaps coming in and out of domestic cricket, as well as notable domestic troopers. This lays out a clear difference between Canterbury's first stanza and how they sit as we venture further into second stanza depths.

Who is Canterbury's best player right now? Henry Shipley.

Shipley had scores of 61 and 70, as well as 3w @ 4.31rpo. Shipley's wickets were three of Auckland's top-order (George Worker, Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman) and after 13.4ov in the first innings, Shipley didn't bowl in the second. This suggests Shipley was injured to some extent prior to both his 50+ scores which makes them a wee bit more impressive. No other Cantab scored 40+ in this game as well.

With three 50+ scores in this summer's PS, Shipley has 228 runs @ 32.57avg. Shipley is also third for Canterbury wickets behind Henry and Will Williams (16w @ 22avg), although Shipley has been far more efficient than the two frontline seamers. Henry and Williams have both bowled 150+ overs, while Shipley's churned out 85.3ov for 16w @ 12.8avg.

Bursting on to the circuit in 2016, Shipley's First-Class career resembles that of Kyle Jamieson as both have had patchy periods of activity while looking their best when stacking up games. Shipley has played five seasons of FC cricket since 2016 (missed 2020/21) and played one game in two of those seasons. If Shipley stays on the field during the second stanza, he will hit his 2018/19 mark of five games and maybe reach his 2016/17 mark of six games.

The best way to lay out Wellington's PS woes is to compare their batting/bowling mahi to the other three teams from this round. Here are the number of players who average over 30 with the bat and under 20 with the ball for each team...

Wellington: Two batters, two bowlers.

Canterbury: Six batters, three bowlers.

Auckland: Six batters, five bowlers.

Northern: Four batters, five bowlers.

Nathan Smith is Wellington's best batter and bowler. Yeah, let that simmer. The only batting/bowling thing Smith did in the game vs Northern was score 70 runs in the final innings.

Quite flattering for Wellington that Northern Districts thought they needed to get 438 ahead before declaring at Cobham Oval. Wellington 55/5 for at close of play, with Nathan Smith in as a Covid replacement for Jimmy Neesham.
— Andrew (@shortflyslip) March 5, 2022

Here are Smith's batting and bowling stats so far...

Bat: 8inns, 222 runs @ 31.71avg, 3 x 50.

Ball: 21w @ 16.28avg/2.34rpo.

No other Wellington batter has 200+ runs. The only other Wellington bowler with 10+ wickets is Ben Sears (18w @ 23.27avg).

Wellington's struggles are understandable as their team skews much younger than usual, amplified with the likes of Tom Blundell, Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra being Test factors. I enjoy tracking Wellington's development and this is most evident now in how they plug holes in their roster which was on display vs Northern with Callum McLachlan scoring runs as wicket-keeper.

McLachlan played his third FC game, after two games in the first stanza where he had scores of 0, 0, 0, 25. Praise jah for the 2022 vibes as McLachlan's first outing this year featured scores of 40* and 56, top-scoring in Wellington's first batting innings at #9 and forming a hearty resistance late in their second batting effort. Tough runs for a young wicket-keeper settling into his FC career.

Finn Allen's PS mahi requires an update as well.

Allen didn't feature in the game vs Northern. I am fascinated by the difference in Allen's batting across formats, even more so considering he commanded attention early in his career via red-ball runs. Last summer Allen scored 40 runs @ 6.66avg and this summer Allen is on 183 runs @ 22.87avg. Allen does not have a 50+ score in his last two seasons and now has a FC record of 526 runs @ 20.23avg.

Wellington's next game is March 20 vs Otago in Dunedin. Canterbury play their next game on March 22 vs Central in Napier.

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Peace and love.