2024 Kiwi County Tour: Nathan Smith, Tom Bruce & Will Williams Get Started
County Championship cricket has started in England which means that a selection of Aotearoa cricketers will be highlighted throughout the Kiwi County Tour. This winter we will focus on Nathan Smith, Tom Bruce and Blair Tickner while Will Young enters the mix in a few weeks. Canterbury's Will Williams is still locked in as a local player with Lancashire and he will be playing alongside Bruce, plus Aussie Test spinner Nathan Lyon and new England Test spinner Tom Hartley.
Most games across both divisions were impacted by rain in the opening round. Lancashire played Surrey and scored 202 runs batting first with Bruce scoring 17 runs and Williams adding 8 runs down the order. Only 8.3 overs were possible in the next innings as rain put a halt to this game with Williams bowling 2 overs.
Williams' impressive bowling mahi always deserves a salute and the intriguing theme for KCT is how First-Class performances in Aotearoa translate over to England. KCT has been a development farm for Blackcaps as Young, Matt Henry, Devon Conway, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell and more have various stints in County cricket over the past five years.
The best emerging cricketers from New Zealand compliment their rise to Blackcaps with development bumps in County Championship, plus Williams' Plunket Shield excellence has led to County Championship excellence. Williams has a FC bowling average of 21.87 after 63 games and most of that was during his eight summers of Plunket Shield, before averaging 17.05 and 23.17 in his first two seasons with Lancashire.
Willams may lack the x-factor of Kyle Jamieson, Will O'Rourke and Ben Sears to propel him into Test cricket but he is clearly a top-notch FC bowler. Bruce adds to the Lancashire funk as he average 49.87 in Plunket Shield last summer and that is aligned with his FC batting average of 49.24. It gets even better as Bruce finished first for Plunket Shield runs in 2021/22 with an average of 143, then finished third for runs in 2022/23 with an average of 70.5.
For all the young talent in Aotearoa, they need to be scoring more runs than someone like Bruce. There is now an opportunity for Bruce to settle in with Lancashire and amplify his Plunket Shield dominance, as well as showing that runs in Aotearoa can translate to runs in County Championship.
This also applies to Smith who is playing for Worcestershire. Smith was the best bowler in Plunket Shield last summer and his last few seasons highlight his development aside from the blip in 2022/23...
2018/19: 42avg
2019/20: 62.66avg
2020/21: 24.56avg
2021/22: 18.41avg
2022/23: 40.66avg
2023/24: 17.18avg
Smith scored 4 runs and took 3w @ 2.33rpo in the draw between Worcs and Warwickshire. A seed of Smith's bowling class was planted in this game as he bowled the most overs for his team (21ov) and was tied with Jake Libby as the most economical Worcestershire bowler, but Libby only bowled 6ov. 10 of Smith's 21ov were maidens which was more than his seven bowling comrades combined.
Don't overlook Smith's all-round ability though as he offered a run-out and well, he only hit a boundary but he’s also a pretty good batter. Smith has averaged over 20 in the last six seasons of Plunket Shield and he's averaging 26 with bat and ball in FC cricket.
Tickner's game with Derbyshire was rained off with no play and he is also in an intriguing spot having been overtaken by the young seamers this summer. Tickner averaged 40+ in his first three summers (2014-17) then he dipped below 30avg for five consecutive seasons (2017-22) which is aligned with him entering Blackcaps squads. This increased to averages of 35.1 and 32.88 in the last two Plunket Shield campaigns, although Tickner did take 25 wickets; Tickner has taken 20+ wickets in eight of his 10 seasons.
The next round of games starts Friday evening Aotearoa time. In division one, the Lancashire lads take on Hampshire and Smith will be playing against Nottinghamshire. Tickner is in the second division with Derbyshire and they play against Glamorgan.
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