Ford Trophy cricket returns after Super Smash season with young seamers sizzling and frisky lower order slugging on show. Northern Districts defeated Auckland and Canterbury defeated Otago while the Wellington vs Central Districts game was rained off, but only after Logan van Beek went large with 136 runs @ 137sr. Van Beek hit his highest score at this level batting eighth and this knock is his second century, his first in List-A cricket.

Wellington put up 281/8 thanks largely to van Beek's hundy and Muhammad Abbas chimed in with 65 runs @ 84sr. These two were the only Wellington batters to score 25+ runs, meanwhile Josh Clarkson bounced back from injury as CD's best bowler with 2w @ 3.2rpo.

CD were nicely poised in reply with Jack Boyle on 33* and Curtis Heaphy on 45*. The two emerging CD batters put up 90 runs without losing a wicket against Wellington's bowling line up of van Beek, Adam Milne, Ben Sears, Nathan Smith and Peter Younghusband.

CD sit mid-table behind ND and Auckland, with a 2-2 record. Wellington have a 1-3 record along with Otago and while ND's Super Smash struggles (2-7) aren't evident in their 4-1 Ford Trophy mahi, Otago are 1-3 in Ford Trophy after going 2-5 in Super Smash. Otago's loss to Canterbury was headlined by a destructive spell from Will O'Rourke who took 6 wickets @ 2.22rpo as he ripped through the top-five batters of Otago.

Zak Foulkes also took 2w @ 5.1rpo with Otago working their way to 135. Ben Lockrose (31 runs @ 73sr) and Andrew Hazeldine (41* @ 113sr) offered resistance down the order for Otago. Canterbury reached their revised rain target of 133 runs losing a couple wickets with Henry Nicholls on 49* @ 89sr as their leading batter.

Nicholls has six 40+ scores in his last nine innings, which sharpens to three 40+ scores in his last four knocks Remember that Nicholls was the leading run-scorer in Super Smash and second for Plunket Shield runs...

• Plunket Shield: 393 runs @ 78avg/58sr

• Ford Trophy: 49 runs @ 89sr

• Super Smash: 317 runs @ 39avg/142sr

O'Rourke is now the leading wicket-taker in Ford Trophy and he leads an enticing crop of young seamers who are at the top of the bowling charts. This includes Kristian Clarke (2w @ 6rpo) and Matt Fisher (5w @ 4.6rpo) who helped ND dismiss Auckland for 215 runs, plus the CD duo of Ray Toole and Josh Clarkson...

• Will O'Rourke: 12w @ 16.4avg/4.5rpo

• Kristian Clarke: 11w @ 17.3avg/4.5rpo

• Ray Toole: 11w @ 20avg/5.3rpo

• Adam Milne: 9w @ 11avg/3.2rpo

• Matt Fisher: 9w @ 23.5avg/4.8rpo

• Danru Ferns: 9w @ 37.4avg/6.4rpo

• Josh Clarkson: 7w @ 19.1avg/4.7rpo

• Tim Pringle: 7w @ 27.8avg/4.3rpo

O'Rourke and Clarke both have List-A bowling averages of 19, Fisher averages 21, Clarkson averages 24 and Toole averages 32 but he dips below 30 in First-Class and T20 bowling. Foulkes is trending in the right direction as well after fantastic mahi in Plunket Shield and Super Smash this summer with 2+ wickets in three consecutive games.

ND's slick performance against Auckland started with a couple centuries. Joe Carter scored 106 runs @ 92sr and Brett Hampton hit 126* @ 126sr as ND put up 319/6, then the ND bowlers got busy. No Auckland batter scored more than 30 runs with Tim Pringle snaring 3w @ 3.4rpo alongside the young ND seamers.

Only two batters have 300+ runs in Ford Trophy right now and both have strike-rates over 120...

• Finn Allen: 387 runs @ 77avg/126sr

• Brett Hampton: 314 runs @ 157avg/121sr

• Joe Carter: 271 runs @ 54avg/91sr

• Rob O'Donnell: 246 runs @ 61avg/72sr

• Troy Johnson: 211 runs @ 52avg/75sr

• Will Clark: 193 runs @ 64avg/9sr

• Logan van Beek: 191 runs @ 47avg/122sr

• Mitch Hay: 190 runs @ 38avg/81sr

After 63 innings and 1,616 runs, Hampton has a LA batting strike-rate of 108 while also averaging 35. A one-day record of 35avg/108sr is incredible and although everything about Hampton suggests he is a Super Smash monster, Ford Trophy seems like the best spot to view Hampton's excellence. Carter also delivers his best mahi in LA cricket with a career average of 39.5 which is the highest LA average of the five batters who have 200+ Ford Trophy runs this season.

Auckland had Jock McKenzie making his LA debut after four Super Smash appearances. Add McKenzie to the list of skillful young seamers who move the ball sideways through swing/seam, bowl with good pace and are impressive athletes. McKenzie has 6w in his first five games of domestic cricket and aside from the funky cross-code angle, McKenzie's cricketing ability is worth tapping into.

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