After being brushed aside by the two Wellington teams in Alexandra, Otago bounced back with two wins over Auckland in front of their faithful fans. Auckland were fairly underwhelming as the Hearts offered minimal resistance with the ball and then stumbled to 104 all out as only three batters scored more than seven runs.

Auckland Aces provided more grit as they battled to put up a competitive target of 151/9 with Rob O'Donnell leading the way (35 runs @ 92sr). Louis Delport snared 3w @ 4rpo as the Aces fell just short in the final over with Travis Muller hitting the winning runs (17* @ 170sr).

Aces are 1-1 and the Hearts are 0-2.

Volts are 1-2 and the Sparks are 2-2.

Suzie Bates last 10 games:

28, 18, 51*, 108, 74, 24, 25, 23, 70, 84* https://t.co/8vgebtewAh
— The Niche Cache (@thenichecache) January 1, 2024

Suzie Bates hit 84* @ 135sr in the Sparks batting innings, following her knock of 70 runs in the loss to Wellington. This takes Bates to 202 runs @ 67avg/121sr and after a tough WBBL campaign, Bates hit three 50+ scores in a row (including a century) against Pakistan and now has back to back half-bigguns.

Sparks success will depend on the supporting cast though. Felicity Roberton (22 runs @ 137sr), Polly Inglis (24 runs @ 120sr) and Caitlin Blakely (15 runs @ 100sr) added their mahi to the Sparks total of 151/4. Here's how the Sparks batting unit aside from Bates has performed after four games...

Felicity Robertson: 64 runs @ 16avg/103sr
Bella James: 56 runs @ 14avg/91sr
Polly Inglis: 51 runs @ 12avg/110sr
Caitlin Blakely: 49 runs @ 16avg/102sr
Olivia Gain: 29 runs @ 7avg/69sr

Sparks rolled Hearts without Hayley Jensen, although Jensen hasn't had much of an impact this season with 1w @ 88avg/7.3rpo. Molly Loe was the chief wicket-taker in her return from injury with 4w @ 3rpo alongside PJ Watkins' 2w @ 4.9rpo and a tidy spell from Eden Carson (1w @ 4.6rpo).

Loe has played two games this season and didn't take any wickets in her lone HBJ Shield appearance. With Loe in the mix, Sparks have a funky young seam trio also featuring Watkins and Emma Black. Watkins is taking plenty of wickets in her first Super Smash and aside from Loe's one game of 3rpo, Black is the only other Sparks bowler below 6rpo. They are joined by spinners Carson and Sophie Oldershaw, although Oldershaw hasn't played in the two Alexandra games...

PJ Watkins: 8w @ 8avg/6.3rpo
Emma Black: 4w @ 21avg/5.7rpo
Eden Carson: 3w @ 31avg/6.7rpo
Sophie Oldershaw: 3w @ 16avg/6.1rpo

Oldershaw dipped out of the mix with Linsey Smith coming in as an import. Smith's 2w @ 32avg/8.1rpo makes her the most expensive Sparks bowler and Jensen's their only bowler with a higher bowling average this season.

Here are the Volts bowlers' mahi vs Aces with their season stats in brackets...

Andrew Hazeldine: 1w @ 5rpo (1w @ 80avg/8.4rpo)
Jacob Duffy: 1w @ 11rpo (first game)
Travis Muller: 3w @ 8.2rpo (4w @ 17avg/8.8rpo)
Ben Lockrose: 1w @ 5.5rpo (2w @ 30avg/7.6rpo)
Jake Gibson: 3w @ 6.5rpo (3w @ 16avg/8.1rpo)

After Hamish Rurtherford started Otago's chase with 32 runs @ 177sr, Dean Foxcroft served up leadership mana with 51 runs @ 130sr to set up the final stages. Foxcroft had a niggly dismissal in the 15th over which was a bummer as he and Llew Johnson (21 runs @ 95sr) toiled hard for a win, only to nearly slip up.

Not out with Muller was Ollie White on 22 runs @ 110sr. This was our first decent look at White after scores of 3 and 1 in his first two Super Smash outings. White looked crisp in his off-side strokes as a lefty and was able to rotate the strike with soft hands, only hitting two boundaries in his 20 deliveries. Scoring at 110sr with just two boundaries is impressive under pressure.

White opened the batting for NZ Under 19s in the 2020 World Cup but he came in as the seventh batter for Volts. This is one of a few funky line up matters for Volts who have Gibson opening the batting thanks to his aggressive slugging and Max Chu sliding up to bat fourth, both of which bump Dale Phillips and White down the order. Johnson displayed maturity in his innings and along with White, they will be intriguing lads to track in Super Smash as they offer a dash of craft in a zone usually featuring hitters.

Dean Foxcroft scored 51 runs @ 130sr vs Auckland and has a T20 record of 39avg/129sr. Also had 62 runs in Ford Trophy vs Auckland a few weeks ago...#SuperSmashNZ #FordTrophy pic.twitter.com/zNBAkg8OiT
— The Niche Cache (@thenichecache) January 1, 2024

Here's a Dean Foxcroft summer update...