Ford Trophy takes a break as Plunket Shield swings around and with five games of one-day cricket in the scorebooks, it's a lovely spot to roll through the five best players from the opening stanza. There are a few honourable mentions in Tom Latham and Tim Robinson as both made the most of their three appearances around Blackcaps duties.

Latham had scores of 78, 29 and 97* in his three innings. There are eight batters who have scored 200+ runs and four blokes have strike-rates over 90, which includes Latham's 91.47 strike-rate as well as Robinson's swift 98.11. Latham currently has a List-A record of 36avg/86sr ahead of the ODI series vs England and he has three scores over 70 in his last 10 innings.

Robinson is in a glorious patch of form with scores of 45, 50 and 113 to start Ford Trophy followed by scores of 27, 39, 23 and 45 in the T20I series vs West Indies. There are 13 batters who have hit at least four sixes and Robinson is the only player in this group who has batted in three innings and his six sixes are tied for third most in Ford Trophy.

Robinson has also hit 27 fours and there are only two batters ahead of him in that category, yet Chad Bowes (34 fours) and Henry Nicholls (33 fours) have batted in all five innings. Ahead of the Plunket Shield, Robinson averages 28 in First-Class, List-A and T20 batting. The 23-year-old has a century in all three formats and strike-rates aligned with what is required in those formats. His best mahi is in T20I though with 31.7avg/139sr.

Josh Clarkson is the best player from the first five rounds of Ford Trophy. The Central Districts all-rounder is the leading wicket-taker and his is the only bowler at the top of the wicket charts who is averaging below 15 as well as operating below 4rpo. Clarkson has 3+ wickets in four of his five innings and hit a century in the latest round vs Canterbury which was his only game without a wicket.

13 batters have scored 150+ runs and Clarkson is the only player over 100sr in this group. Averaging 30 with a strike-rate over 100 sums up Clarkson's role in a strong CD batting unit and he has improved on last season's Ford Trophy in which he offered 21.8avg/83sr with the bat and 34.6avg/5.3rpo with the ball.

Josh Clarkson

2025/26 Ford Trophy: 156 runs @ 31.2avg/107.5sr, 1 x 100 | 47ov, 16w @ 11.3avg/3.8rpo
List-A career: 28.7avg/95sr | 25.5avg/5.2rpo

Henry Nicholls is the only batter with 300+ runs and two centuries from the first five rounds. With 150* in the second Test vs Zimbabwe, Nicholls has three centuries in his last six games of cricket and two of them are not-outs. His 138 runs vs Auckland gives Nicholls the highest score in Ford Trophy so far and the only batter with a higher average in the group of eight batters with 200+ runs is Latham (102avg).

His best format is LA with 42.9avg. Last season Nicholls only managed to score 97 runs @ 19.4avg/67sr in five innings and he has tripled that in the same number of games to start this season.

Henry Nicholls

2025/26 Ford Trophy: 306 runs @ 76.5avg/95sr, 2 x 100
List-A carerer: 42.9avg/84.8sr

There are only two batters who have had two ducks in the first five rounds of Ford Trophy. One is Sean Solia who is yet to score a run because he has only played two games and the other is Tom Bruce, who is third for runs in Ford Trophy. Of the 13 batters who have scored 150+ runs, the only other batter with one duck is Clarkson and that leaves Bruce as the only batter with 200+ runs who has had one duck let alone two.

Bruce's season started with two ducks and since then he has had scores of 72, 63 and 102*. That makes Bruce the only batter in Ford Trophy who has had three 50+ scores in Ford Trophy and this follows a 2024/25 Ford Trophy campaign in which he finished third for runs with 431 runs @ 43.1avg/108sr, which highlights a tweak in his scoring rate as he drops down to 87sr this season.

FC is still Bruce's best format with 41.12avg. His century vs Canterbury was only his third 91 innings of LA batting while he has 21 scores over 50.

Tom Bruce

2025/26 Ford Trophy: 237 runs @ 59.2avg/87sr, 1 x 100, 2 x 50
List-A career: 33.9avg/101sr

James Hartshorn is second for wickets and along with Clarkson, they are the only bowlers who have taken 10+ wickets. The 28-year-old Wellington seamer has 2+ wickets in every game to start the season and he has only played two seasons of Ford Trophy prior to this summer, with 2w @ 82avg/6.3rpo in 2020/21 and no wickets in 4 overs of bowling last season.

He has only bowled in one Super Smash campaign as well and it was last summer with 7w @ 15.2avg/9.7rpo. Hartshorn has been a more regular member of Wellington's Plunket Shield team with four seasons prior to the start of this season, taking 5+ wickets in his last three seasons.

Hartshorn has a FC bowling record of 36avg/3.1rpo and his LA average has dropped down to 30 after his strong start to the summer. Now he will be eager to keep his spot in the Plunket Shield 1st 11 and he is well prepared for that workload because he and leggy Peter Younghusband are the only Wellington players who have bowled 40+ overs in Ford Trophy.

James Hartshorn

2025/26 Ford Trophy: 47ov, 12w @ 19avg/4.8rpo
List-A career: 30.2avg/5.5rpo

15 bowlers have taken 7+ wickets and Adithya Ashok is the only bloke who has bowled in four innings of this group. Ashok is joined by Younghusband and CD's Jayden Lennox for spinners who have taken 8 wickets to start the season but Ashok is the only one of the three averaging below 25.

Ashok and Clarkson are the only bowlers who have taken a 4-wicket-baggy in Ford Trophy, although Clarkson has two as well as a 5-fer. Other bowlers have taken more wickets but Ashok is the best spinner in Ford Trophy and he's also smacked 74 runs @ 140sr in three innings of batting, which is the highest strike-rate for all batters in Ford Trophy.

This follows a year of NZ-A cricket in which Ashok was the best overall player across tours of Bangladesh and South Africa. In his last 10 games he has bowled 12 innings and taken 2+ wickets in eight innings, sharpening to 2+ wickets in six of his last seven innings. Ashok forecasted these conditions in the Ford Trophy last summer with 60 runs @ 30avg/81sr and 10w @ 28.5avg/4.9rpo.

This is his fifth LA season and Ashok is on track to take 10+ wickets for the fourth time, although his current average is the lowest of his five seasons. Ashok's best format is T20 bowling where he averages 23.4 but his LA average has dropped to 33.1 and most of the best spinners in Aotearoa have FC/LA averages in the early 30s.

Adithya Ashok

2025/26 Ford Trophy: 74 runs @ 37avg/140sr | 8w @ 22.7avg/5.2rpo
List-A career: 18.8avg/84sr | 33.1avg/5.4rpo

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