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2023 Kiwi County Tour: Daryl Mitchell & Matt Henry Arrive

Kiwi County Tour cricket has been rolling along for a few weeks with the arrivals of Daryl Mitchell, Matt Henry and Ajaz Patel adding extra intrigue. Neil Wagner was lined up to join Yorkshire but he's battling injuries from last summer and Tom Latham will link up Surrey in the next few weeks.

Doug Bracewell is another Blackcaps cricketer grinding through County Championship with Essex, while Colin de Grandhomme is enjoying post-Blackcaps career with Lancashire. Two kiwis with British passports are also in the KCT mix with Matt Quinn snaring wickets for Kent and Will Williams doesn't stop bagging First-Class wickets after shifting from Canterbury to Lancashire last year.

Bracewell, Quinn and Williams are all playing Division tahi. All three have made strong starts to to their English summers, averaging in the low-20s with plenty of wickets. Keep in mind that Williams has a FC career average of 21.6 after 53 games and the manner in which he has parlayed his Plunket Shield wicket-taking into County Championship dominance is fabulous.

  • Doug Bracewell: 15w @ 22.33avg/4.35rpo

  • Will Williams: 15w @ 23.13avg/2.6rpo

  • Matt Quinn: 9w @ 23.33avg/3rpo

Williams has spent the start of this KCT campaign playing alongside de Grandhomme, who hit 67* in his first game and he has 6w @ 40avg/3.5rpo. Unfortunately de Grandhomme wasn't playing for Lancashire in the KCT kiwi battle as Mitchell made his first appearance for Lancashire, coming up against Somerset who had Henry in their team. That's three Canterbury players in the same KCT game.

Henry whacked 50* @ 128.2sr batting down the order for Somerset, while Williams and Mitchell took 3w each. Mitchell then hit 105 for Lancashire and Henry took 4w before Somerset batted their way to a draw, with Williams taking 2w in his second effort.

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Mitchell has a Test average of 57.21 and a FC average of 41.41, also averaging less than 31 with the ball in all three formats below international cricket. Mitchell scored back to back centuries in the ODI series vs Pakistan, averaging 43.63 in ODI cricket.

Henry has now taken 3+ wickets in three of his last four games after another impressive dose of ODI bowling in Pakistan. Henry has a glorious ODI bowling average of 25.59 and apart from Test bowling where he averages 37.34, Henry is averaging below 30 in the other five formats. Most notably, Henry averages 24 in FC bowling and that stems from years of Plunket Shield dominance, as well as baggies of County Championship wickets.

Patel didn't take a wicket for Durham in Division rua, bowling 10 overs @ 2.1rpo in their first innings and then 11 overs @ 3.27rpo in the second dig. Between those bowling efforts, Patel did score 34 runs @ 113sr as the last Durham batter. After a solid Plunket Shield campaign (21w @ 33.57avg), Patel took 1w @ 3.3rpo against Australia 'A' before conceding 8.7rpo in 7ov as the Aussies had a whack in their second innings.

That amounts to 1w in Patel's last two games, four innings. Patel has taken 5w @ 68.6avg in three Tests after his Mumbai magic and this could be an important winter for Patel who is usually at his best when bowling lots of overs. The flow of County Championship games should help this and while kiwi seamers love English conditions, how this kiwi spinner performs will be just as interesting.

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