2024 Kiwi County Tour: The Arrival Of Will Young & Nathan Smith Keeps Grinding
Will Young joined Nathan Smith in churning out impressive County Championship mahi over the weekend as both scored runs in Division One and Smith snared his usual dose of wickets. Blair Tickner took 2 wickets @ 3.32rpo in Derbyshire's draw with Leicestershire which takes Tickner to 4w @ 47avg/3.3rpo after two games and Lancashire suffered a heavy defeat to Essex featuring Tom Bruce and Will Williams.
The best summary of Bruce's stint with Lancashire this year is that Williams almost has as many runs as Bruce. Williams has been steady as always with the ball (6w @ 22.16avg/2.5rpo) and while he has one less wicket than Nathan Lyon, the Aussie spinner is averaging 32.14. Williams has also scored 47 runs @ 15.66avg and he is one run behind Bruce who has 48 runs @ 12avg with scores of 17, 0, 26 and 5 so far.
Young popped up for his first game with Nottinghamshire and started with 27 runs batting third against Somerset. Notts needed a hearty batting innings to soak up Somerset's big lead and Young formed a partnership with Joe Clarke to drag this game out to a draw. Young finished on 174* and Clarke was not-out on 213.
Clarke has three centuries in three games and Young is the only other Notts batter who has a century this season. Young's runs maintain his First-Class batting average of 40.58 and he is still averaging 40+ in FC and List-A cricket, as well as a healthy 44.42avg in ODIs. After a Test series against Australia in which Young didn't pass 20 runs in four innings, Young finished Plunket Shield with a knock of 90 runs and now he has scores of 90, 27 and 174* in his last three innings.
Worcestershire were beaten by Durham but Smith showcased his all-round class once again. Smith took 1w @ 3.54rpo in the first innings and then scored 33* which was the second highest score for Worcs in that innings. Durham reinforced their lead with another big batting innings in which Smith took 2w @ 4.85rpo and then Smith battled to 57 runs in a losing run chase for Worcs.
This wasn't Smith's best performance but he is the leading wicket-taker for Worcs and their only bowler averaging below 20, make that 25. Smith also has two 50+ scores in four innings and after starting this KCT averaging 26 with bat and ball, Smith is now averaging a bit over 27 with the bat and he his heading below 26 with the ball.
Here are Smith's performances across the end of Plunket Shield and start of County Championship...
vs Canterbury: 4 runs, 75* | 1w, 6w
vs Otago: 4 runs | 2w, 0w
vs Northern Districts: 2 runs | 3w
vs Warwickshire: 4 runs | 3w
vs Nottinghamshire: 58 runs | 3w, 4w
vs Durham: 33*, 57 runs | 1w, 2w
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