As Plunket Shield cricket winds down, there are a bunch of youngsters churning impressive performances. Canterbury are first with a 3-1-3 record and 83 points after a loss to Central, who are now third with a 3-2-1 record and 67 points. Northern grabbed their second win in a row, defeating Wellington to sit on 79 points with a 3-3-1 record. Wellington have 60 points (2-3-2) and are fourth, while Otago and Auckland played out a draw and both teams have just a single win this season.

Otago's batting core is intriguing given they have the a group of youngsters capable of big runs. In their lone batting innings, Dale Phillips scored 129 for Otago while Thorn Parkes (53 runs) and Dean Foxcroft (51 runs) offered support. Foxcroft has been a run-scoring machine this summer, averaging 44.66 in Plunket Shield after a Super Smash campaign averaging 47.11.

Despite a Ford Trophy average of 17.87, Foxcroft has a career List-A average of 38.47 and continues to showcase his class in domestic cricket. Parkes on the other hand struggled to take his limited SS and FT opportunities, after an impressive start to the summer in PS. Parkes has five scores over 50 in 12 innings of PS batting, sitting third for Otago runs behind Foxcroft and Phillips with an average of 33.25.

Phillips hit his first major score of the summer after a lean limited overs phase, which reflects his older brother's mahi. Glenn didn't play SS, Dale averaged 9.42 in SS. Glenn averaged 11.5 in FT, while Dale averaged 20.25. In PS, Glenn has a century and two 50+ scores which is now the same as Dale. Glenn's averaging 69.4 in PS and Dale's averaging 34.5.

Simon Keene was Auckland's young run-scorer against Otago with a knock of 68 in support of Ben Horne's 137. While he was a dominant force with the ball last season, Keene has struggled for wickets this summer with 5w @ 64.2avg/3.47rpo. Keene's got two scores over 50 and a batting average of 41.16 to balance that out.

Adithya Ashok continues to develop in PS, bowling 40 overs with 3w @ 3.12rpo in tandem with veteran spinners Will Somerville and Louis Delport. Ashok (15w @ 26.2avg/2.83rpo) is still behind Somerville as Auckland's best bowler and it's funky to note that Auckland's spinners are their best bowlers this season.

Wellington lost to Northern but Gareth Severin and Muhammad Abbas smacked runs once again. In his first few games of PS cricket, Abbas has scores of 79, 33, 1, 130, 95 and 8 with an overall record of 346 runs @ 57.66avg after three games. Severin is in a similar groove with scores of 80, 5, 4 and 196 in his first two games, for an overall record of 285 runs @ 71.25avg.

Severin's big hundy came with support from night-watcher Michael Snedden (90 runs) and almost gave Wellington a win. Chasing 391 for victory, Severin was dismissed by Mitchell Santner with Wellington on 388 and Santner then snared the winning wicket with the next ball. Having tracked a dip in run-scoring from Wellington youngsters this season, it's interesting how Severin and Abbas have snapped up their opportunities, growing Wellington's pool of young batters.

Northern's had crucial performances from the K-Clarkes, with Katene Clarke settling into four-day cricket after a diet of limited overs action. Katene has been a key figure in back to back Super Smash championships and he's got a frisky FT record of 30.11avg/105sr this season. In his third PS game of the summer, Katene hit 129 runs and he's now cruising along at 37.66avg/85sr this season.

Kristian Clarke has been playing all formats for Northern and he took 5w @ 3.77rpo, before 1w @ 1.58rpo as Northern's spinners took over late in the game. Kristian is Northern's leading wicket-taker in PS with 18w @ 32avg/3.26rpo, after taking 16w @ 21.31avg/5.55rpo in FT and 7w @ 21.28avg/8.76rpo in SS.

Tim Pringle has also settled into Northern's PS line up alongside spinners Santner and Joe Walker. With 2w in each innings, Pringle now has 11w @ 37.27avg/3.5rpo.

Central defeated Canterbury thanks to Josh Clarkson's 119 in their first innings, then 44* @ 169sr as Central hunted Canterbury's target of 141. This is a similar to Katene Clarke as Clarkson's been one of the best young sluggers in SS and FT, but he has barely played PS in a stacked Central outfit.

Clarkson hit his first PS century and as his team had lost early wickets, Clarkson had to grind out a start before letting the runs flow. Clarkson then went about his regular mahi later in the game and such performances from Clarkson or Katene Clarke show how strong the PS development system is.

While Rhys Mariu continues to impress at the top of Canterbury's batting line up, Mitch Hay also opened and hit 83 runs in the second innings. Hay has three scores over 50 in his last two games and five 50+ scores in 11 innings this season for 446 runs @ 40.54avg this season. Hay is also scoring his runs however his team requires them as scored runs in the middle order before being bumped up to open in place of Chad Bowes for this game.

Canterbury rolled out a young seam attack and couldn't contain Central's batters, although Fraser Sheat and Will O'Rourke managed to snare a few wickets. Sheat still has a bonkers First-Class bowling average of 25.83 and O'Rourke is second for Canterbury wickets behind Matt Henry, with 22w @ 30.4avg/3.18rpo.

O'Rourke is now fourth for PS wickets this season and is this frames a notable difference between young bowlers and young batters. While the best PS batters are all experienced veterans, most of the young batters mentioned in this yarn have 300+ runs and sit in the top-20 for PS runs.

O'Rourke and Kristian Clarke are the only young seamers with 12+ wickets in the top-20. Both these lads are averaging over 30 while most of their seaming peers are averaging below 25. Jacob Duffy, Matt Henry and Doug Bracewell are the three best seamers in PS so far and then there is a group of slightly older seamers who provide the most intrigue.

Henry Shipley (26yrs) and Brett Randell (27yrs) took wickets in the Canterbury vs Central fixture. Shipley's 4w in that loss take him to 19w @ 27.21avg/3.39rpo and Randell's 6w for Central take him to 18w @ 24.22avg/2.71rpo.

Ray Toole (25yrs) took 6w for Central in this win as well and he's having a lovely summer with 19w @ 23.63avg/2.9rpo. This is the Ben Lister (27yrs) zone as well and his Blackcaps promotion stems from strong FT/SS mahi, although Lister also has 6w @ 21.16avg/2.64rpo in PS. Shipley, Randell, Toole and Lister aren't just in a similar age bracket; all four average between 25-28 as FC bowlers.

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