The Aotearoa summer of cricket will start with Ford Trophy instead of Plunket Shield and while the best lads still need to pile up runs or wickets, this does provide a few intriguing wrinkles framing the start of the season. In the last five seasons of the one-day competition, Canterbury and Auckland have won twice with Central Districts winning once. This theme continues going back to 2015 as Canterbury and Auckland have three Ford Trophy championships and the next best is Central Districts on two.

Northern Districts last won the Ford Trophy in 2009/10. They have added Rob O'Donnell to their squad and he was the leading run-scorer in Ford Trophy last summer with Auckland, as the only bloke to score 400+ runs. O'Donnell scored two of his three List-A centuries last season with 635 runs @ 70.5avg/82sr and he has hearty mahi in Auckland's recent Ford Trophy success...

2017/18: 52.5avg
2019/20: 36.45avg
2021/22: 40.42avg

The funky thing here is how O'Donnell joins an ND group who have fantastic one-day performers. Brett Hampton has a LA career strike-rate of 107.7 and he whacked 346 runs @ 86.5avg/116.8sr in the Ford Trophy last year, slightly less runs than Joe Carter who was ND's leading run-scorer on 350 runs @ 43.7avg/82.5sr. Along with O'Donnell, these lads have above average LA career stats over a large sample size...

Rob O'Donnell: 84 games, 36.4avg/75.6sr
Joe Carter: 60 games, 38.7avg/79sr
Brett Hampton: 79 games, 34.3avg/107.7sr | 36.5avg/5.3rpo

ND also have two of the most interesting young seamers for the Ford Trophy campaign in Kristian Clarke and Matt Fisher. Both have LA as their best bowling formats and both took 10+ wickets last summer, with Clarke finishing as the leading wicket-taker. Many kiwi cricket fans know all about Fisher because of the zip he bowls with, but Clarke is overlooked as one of the best emerging seamers in Aotearoa despite his excellent LA record and solid First-Class record of 28.6avg/3.3rpo.

Here is what Clarke and Fisher did last summer with their LA career stuff...

Kristian Clarke: 18w @ 22.3avg/5.3rpo | 21.8avg/5.4rpo
Matt Fisher: 12w @ 30.8avg/5.2rpo | 24.2avg/5.1rpo

ND spinner Tim Pringle is out injured and this leaves Auckland leggy Adithya Ashok as the primary young spinner to watch out for. Ashok has already played three games for Aotearoa and his last game was on December 23 last summer when he was playing an ODI vs Bangladesh.

Ashok must have suffered a hefty injury that ruled him out of the rest of the season and it followed a solid Plunket Shield first stanza, before being less effective in his five games of Ford Trophy. Ashok's best format is T20 where he averages 22 and he sits between 34-37.5avg in the other two formats, which is reflected in his mahi last season...

Plunket Shield: 14w @ 35.1avg/3.7rpo
Ford Trophy: 5w @ 48.2avg/5.1rpo

Two CD batters to track are Curtis Heaphy and Will Clark, who finished second and third for CD runs in Ford Trophy behind Brad Schmulian last season. Heaphy played his first Ford Trophy campaign so his mahi forms his LA career record and Clark has been quietly simmering with as one of the best emerging all-rounders folks don't know about. Here's their Ford Trophy mahi last season...

Curtis Heaphy: 277 runs @ 39.5avg/57.3sr
Will Clark: 264 runs @ 44avg/89.4sr | 5w @ 33.4avg/6.1rpo

Clark is averaging 40+ in FC and LA batting. He has only played six Plunket Shield games for his 42.8avg/61.7sr but his LA record of 46.7avg/93.6sr stretches across two summers. Clark also finished last season with scores of 44, 57 and 66 with the last two 50+ scores in Plunket Shield.

Another sneaky all-rounder to watch out for is Otago's Luke Georgeson as he finished second for Otago runs and first for Otago wickets in Ford Trophy last summer. Georgeson's best format is LA where he has a batting record of 35.6avg/74.9sr and a bowling record of 23.5avg/5.4rpo. Last summer in FT Georgeson scored 253 runs @ 28.1avg/80.3sr and took 16w @ 15avg/4.3rpo.

Georgeson was second to Thorn Parkes for Otago runs in FT and he also churned out all his LA batting last season. Parkes finished with 319 runs @ 53.1avg/72.5sr and LA batting is his best format by a hefty margin.

Nathan Smith is the only player contracted to Blackcaps who is yet to represent Aotearoa and as the most dominant Plunket Shield player last season, the intrigue around Smith is how he starts the season in the one-day format. Smith averages below 26 in FC and T20 bowling, while averaging 31.9 in LA bowling and his LA batting record of 26.4avg/94.8sr is aligned with his FC batting record of 27avg/48.7sr.

Here are Smith's Ford Trophy and Plunket Shield stats from last summer...

Ford Trophy: 122 runs @ 17.4avg/86.5sr | 11w @ 29avg/5.6rpo
Plunket Shield: 245 runs @ 24.5avg/59.3sr | 33w @ 17.1avg/2.9rpo

Smith deserves all the buzz around him and yet there are lots of emerging Blackcaps who have already represented Aotearoa but don't have contracts for that level. Ashok is one of these lads, as is Henry Shipley who only played one game of cricket last summer and that was the Ford Trophy final. Shipley snared 1w @ 5.8rpo in his 8 overs of the final and it's still possible that Canterbury deploy Shipley with Kyle Jamieson over the next few months, perhaps even these two with Will O'Rourke.

Here are some key stats for emerging Blackcaps (FT last season | LA career)...

Ben Lister: 15w @ 22.9avg/4.7rpo | 32.9avg/5.3rpo
Zak Foulkes: 17w @ 21.8avg/4.7rpo | 22.6avg/4.6rpo
Josh Clarkson: 12w @ 23.6avg/5.4rpo | 25.3avg/5.4rpo
Dean Foxcroft: 174 runs @ 21.7avg/57.6sr | 30.7avg/78sr
Tim Robinson: 115 runs @ 28.7avg/82.7sr | 19.2avg/83.4sr

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