2023/24 Plunket Shield: Round Two Notebook
The second round of Plunket Shield featured wins for Northern Districts and Wellington, while Otago battled for a gritty draw with Canterbury. ND and Wellington are both undefeated to start the season, both had nifty contributions from young players as well. Otago and Auckland are yet to win a game.
Northern Districts: 2-0 | 38 points
Wellington: 2-0 | 36 points
Central Districts: 1-1 | 23 points
Canterbury: 0-1-1 | 11 points
Otago: 0-1-1 | 10 points
Auckland: 0-2 | 7 points
Most Runs
Mitch Hay: 198 runs @ 66avg/58sr
Nick Kelly: 193 runs @ 48avg/57sr
Henry Nicholls: 185 runs @ 92avg/61sr
Muhammad Abbas: 167 runs @ 41avg/54sr
Sandeep Patel: 166 runs @ 83avg/70sr
Joe Carter: 152 runs @ 76avg/61sr
Brad Schmulian: 138 runs @ 46avg/62sr
Greg Hay: 126 runs @ 42avg/40sr
Sean Solia: 126 runs @ 31avg/52sr
Tom Bruce: 124 runs @ 41avg/53
Most Wickets
Scott Kuggeleijn: 14w @ 10avg/2.3rpo
Nathan Smith: 13w @ 12avg/2.9rpo
Fraser Sheat: 11w @ 14avg/2.3rpo
Adithya Ashok: 11w @ 25avg/4.7rpo
Peter Younghusband: 9w @ 13avg/2.5rpo
Zak Foulkes: 9w @ 14avg/3rpo
Kristian Clarke: 9w @ 17avg/3.5rpo
Ray Toole: 9w @ 17avg/2.8rpo
Doug Bracewell: 8w @ 20avg/2.6rpo
Matt Fisher: 7w @ 12avg/3.5rpo
Auckland vs Northern Districts
Northern Districts went to the top of the Plunket Shield ladder with a hefty win over Auckland. This was Auckland's second loss in a row and both losses have come at their home ground at Eden Park. Not only has Auckland struggled in home conditions to start this season, they have slumped to a win, a draw and four losses in their last six home games.
Auckland batted first and put up 184 thanks to Rob O'Donnell's 61 runs, while no other Auckland batter scored 25+ runs. Kristian Clarke was the chief wicket-taker for ND with 6w @ 3.2rpo and Scott Kuggeleijn snared 2w @ 2rpo. ND responded with 295 runs as Jeet Raval, Joe Carter and Brett Hampton all hit 50-odds. Auckland leggy Adithya Ashok churned out a fabulous innings with 7w @ 3.9rpo in 26.1 overs and he was the only Auckland bowler to register 20+ overs in this innings.
Batting on their home deck to salvage an iffy start to the summer, Auckland managed to score 161 runs. Quinn Sunde led the Auckland batters with 35 runs as Auckland put up their third score below 200 in four innings this season. Fisher led the ND bowlers with 6w @ 3rpo along with Kuggeleijn's 3w @ 2.6rpo, giving ND a target of 51 runs for victory. Tim Seifert was promoted up the order to have a whack (24 runs @ 218sr) along with Henry Cooper (18 runs @ 180sr), as ND chased down their target in 4.1ov.
Ashok is the only Auckland bowler averaging below 30. 15 bowlers have 6+ wickets and Ashok is the only Aucklander in this group with Danru Ferns the only other Auckland bowler who has taken 5+ wickets. The thread of Simon Keene hitting a plateau continues as he doesn't have any wickets this season, after 8w @ 49.6 last summer and 25w @ 14avg in his debut campaign.
On the flipside, ND had two of their young seamers take 6w in either innings. Clarke is 22-years-old and Fisher is 23-years-old, both are averaging under 30 in First-Class bowling. Clarke averages 29.2 and Fisher has had a fantastic start to his Plunket Shield career with 22.6avg after six games. Add in the best seamer in domestic cricket right now with Kuggeleijn backing up his impressive mahi against Australia A, taking the most wickets with the lowest average in the Plunket Shield so far.
ND also have Carter scoring 50+ in his two innings so far. Carter dipped down to 24.1avg in last season's Plunket Shield before scoring two hundreds in India with Aotearoa A and his 76avg after two games gives Carter his first Plunket Shield season averaging 50+.
Central Districts vs Wellington
Wellington join ND on two wins with their victory over CD. Wellington scored 201 batting first with no batters passing 50 while Nick Kelly (43) and Callum McLachlan (49) did their best to build a competitive tally. Doug Bracewell, Brett Randell, Ajaz Patel all took 2w and Ray Toole snared 3w before CD were dismissed for 169. Nathan Smith took 4w as the leading bowler for Wellington along with Michael Snedden's 3w, then Wellington offered a solid batting effort to set up their pursuit of a result.
Wellington scored 324 runs thanks to Gareth Severin's 77 runs and 98 from skipper Nick Kelly. Muhammad Abbas chimed in with 45 runs. Bracewell and Randell took 3w each with Patel also taking 2w. CD needed 357 for victory and they could only muster 184 runs with Dane Cleaver and Patel scoring 40-odds as the best CD batters.
Smith took 3w and leggy Peter Younghusband dismissed Jack Boyle, then Cleaver after both had made starts. James Harstshorn offered the most impact though as he took 4w to rip through CD's middle order and after not taking any wickets in his first three bowling innings this season, Hartshorn found a game-winning groove. Including the end of last summer, Hartshorn had gone four consecutive innings without a wicket and this was the first time Hartshorn took 4w in his last seven games of Plunket Shield.
It's the opposite for Smith who has 3w in all four innings this season, with at least one wicket in his last six innings of Plunket Shield bowling. Wellington are also boosted by Younghusband's spin wickets with his 9w second behind Smith's 13w. Severin is also worthy of note as he is 23-years-old with a FC average of 38 and he appears to have had a stint with Kent 2nd 11 over the winter for three games; 56 runs in a T20 as well as scores of 9, 34, 68, 8 in four-dayers.
CD had no batter score 50+ in this game. That probably won't happened again any time soon so expect a bounce back of some sort. CD's bowlers are equally as talented as their batters with Toole, Bracewell, Patel, Randell and Tickner all taking 5+ wickets so far.
Canterbury vs Otago
Henry Nicholls announced his return to Plunket Shield with 124 runs as Canterbury scored 313 batting first against Otago. Mitch Hay scored the first of his 50+ bangers in this game with 59 runs supporting Nicholls, while Kyle Jamieson also snuck back into the Plunket Shield mixer with 44*. Jake Gibson's 4w led Otago and Dean Foxcroft took 2w, before Otago put up 184 runs in reply led by Dale Phillips' 61 runs.
Fraser Sheat took 4w for Canterbury along with 2w from Angus McKenzie and Michael Rae. Canterbury then set the game up with 333/4dec as Cole McConchie hit 108 runs along with Nicholls' 61 runs and Hay's 82*. Otago needed 463 runs for victory and a hearty effort from all involved saw this encounter end in a draw, with Otago on 254/9. Jamal Tood scored the most runs for Otago with 64 but there were gritty innings played throughout the Otago line up; Luke Georgeson scored 18 runs off 94 balls up top, Max Chu scored 38 runs off 110 balls as well as knocks like Jarrod McKay finishing on 0* off 22 balls.
Jamieson took 1w in the first innings and snared 4w @ 1.9rpo in the second innings as Canterbury pushed for victory. Scoring 44* and taking 5w in his return, Jamieson continues to command attention in a strong Canterbury line up. This includes the underground trooper Sheat who also took 5w in the game, now averaging 24.6 after 31 games of FC cricket.
Nicholls and McConchie both hit centuries. Nicholls is a smidge below 40avg with the bat in FC, averaging 39.58 and he is on a streak of six consecutive innings scoring 40+. Nicholls had scores of 41, 44, 49 and 50* in ODIs for Blackcaps prior to the World Cup, now he has scores of 124 and 61 to start his Plunket Shield seasons.
The funkiest Cantab though is Hay, who crept into Aotearoa A cricket this year with scores of 43 and 39 against Australia A. Hay has scores of 13, 44, 59 and 82* to start his season with nine scores over 50 in 20 innings of FC cricket. This rounds out to an average of 46.3 after 13 games.
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