Northern Districts are 2024/25 Plunket Shield champions. It was their first four-day championship since 2011/12 and having won four Super Smash championships in this period, all that's left is winning the Ford Trophy because they haven't won the one-day competition since 2009/10.

Table

Northern Districts | 5-0-3 | 109 points
Wellington | 4-3-1 | 100 points
Canterbury | 3-4-1 | 86 points
Central Districts | 3-3-2 | 79 points
Otago | 1-4-3 | 54 points
Auckland | 1-3-4 | 51 points

Given that ND was the only team not to lose a game and every other team had at least three losses, they are deserving winners of the shield. ND started the summer with two wins followed by two draws, then they had three wins in their last four games when Plunket Shield swung back around. After three home games in the first stanza, ND finished the campaign with three away trips and sealed their championship with wins in Wellington then Dunedin.

Northern Districts Season

At Canterbury: won by 7 wickets
Vs Auckland: won by 179 runs
Vs Otago: draw
Vs CD: draw
Vs Canterbury: won by 54 runs
At Auckland: draw
At Wellington: won by 20 runs
At Otago: won by 134 runs

There was a splash of magic in how Neil Wagner bowed out of domestic cricket, partly thanks to his typical mahi with the ball but mainly with the bat as his last game of Plunket Shield featured two not-out innings and a bunch of sixes. Veterans Jeet Raval and Scott Kuggeleijn also had funky performances in the final, as well as joining Wagner in being excellent throughout the season.

Raval played leg-spinning role late in the summer with 14 wickets in the last three games. This gave Raval the lowest bowling average and strike-rate for ND this season of the bowlers who took more than a wicket, while also being their leading run-scorer and skipper.

Kuggeleijn had scores of 53* and 71 in the last game of the season, hitting 11 sixes across both innings. He was also ND's leading wicket-taker this season and finished the summer with a wicket in seven of his eight bowling innings.

Northern Districts Championship Stats

Batting

Jeet Raval: 672 runs @ 48avg/48sr, 2 x 100, 3 x 50
Bharat Popli: 483 runs @ 37.1avg/56sr, 1 x 100, 3 x 50
Brett Hampton: 451 runs @ 41avg/78sr, 1 x 100, 2 x 50
Rob O'Donnell: 397 runs @ 33avg/63sr, 1 x 100
Henry Cooper: 390 runs @ 26avg/48sr, 1 x 100, 1 x 50
Joe Carter: 299 runs @ 49.8avg/66sr, 2 x 100
Kristian Clarke: 288 runs @ 32avg/51sr, 1 x 50
Ben Pomare: 245 runs @ 40.8avg/49sr, 1 x 50
Scott Kuggeleijn: 219 runs @ 27.3avg/76sr, 2 x 50
Neil Wagner: 189 runs @ 31.5avg/88sr, 1 x 50
Sandeep Patel: 129 runs @ 43avg/56sr, 1 x 50
Tim Seifert: 100 runs @ 50avg/125sr, 1 x 50
Kane Williamson: 64 runs @ 32avg/50sr, 1 x 50
Joshua Brown: 44 runs @ 14.6avg/61sr
Scott Johnston: 31 runs @ 31avg/64sr
Freddy Walker: 20 runs @ 20avg/69sr
Fergus Lellman: 16 runs @ 16avg/31sr
Matt Fisher: 14 runs @ 14avg/93sr
Rohit Gulati: 9 runs @ 9avg/150sr
Tim Southee: 2 runs @ 2avg/40sr

Bowling

Scott Kuggeleijn: 27w @ 21.1avg/3.1rpo, 2 x 5w
Neil Wagner: 24w @ 26.1avg/3rpo, 1 x 5w
Brett Hampton: 23w @ 24.4avg/2.9rpo
Kristian Clarke: 16w @ 44avg/3.4rpo, 1 x 5w
Jeet Raval: 14w @ 11.1avg/2.7rpo, 1 x 5w
Matt Fisher: 14w @ 17.7avg/3.3rpo
Joshua Brown: 10w @ 33.8avg/4.3rpo
Freddy Walker: 5w @ 34.2avg/3.9rpo
Scott Johnston: 4w @ 23.5avg/2.8rpo
Henry Cooper: 4w @ 24.7avg/1.9rpo
Rohit Gulati: 3w @ 51.3avg/2.5rpo
Tim Southee: 2w @ 27.5avg/2.2rpo
Sandeep Patel: 1w @ 3avg/1.5rpo
Fergus Lellman: 1w @ 34avg/3rpo

ND had fabulous service from other hearty domestic cricketers such as Joe Carter, Bharat Popli and Brett Hampton. Carter hit two centuries this season and Popli joined Raval in being the only ND batters who had at least four 50+ scores. Hampton has picked up a County Championship gig with Hampshire and was the other other batter who had three 50+ scores, as well as being third for wickets.

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Most notably, Hampton hit the most Plunket Shield sixes this season with 19. Nine batters hit at least nine sixes this summer and ND had five of them; Kuggeleijn (11), Ben Pomare (10), Rob O'Donnell (10) and Wagner (9).

Raval and Hampton both averaged 40+ with the bat and less than 25 with the ball. Henry Cooper and Rob O'Donnell both hit centuries this season. ND had six batters score a century and three bowlers take 20+ wickets.

There was an intriguing cluster of younger lads chiming in throughout the season as well. Kristian Clarke finished fourth for wickets while also averaging 32 with the bat across 10 innings. Clarke and wicket-keeper Pomare played seven games each, with Pomare operating as the main wicket-keeper in the long format. Not only was Pomare one of the best six hitters this season, he was one of four ND batters who averaged over 40 with the bat while playing four or more games.

Matt Fisher didn't play in the second stanza but he was efficient in his three appearances earlier in the summer. Fisher snared 14w @ 17.7avg and that's the second lowest bowling average for ND after Raval for (2+ wickets), forming Fisher's sneaky impressive FC bowling average of 24.1.

Sandeep Patel only played two games and didn't featured in the second stanza but he again flashed his potential. Patel had scores of 56, 15*, 45 and 13 which takes his FC batting average to 35.5 after eight games.

Like their batting unit, ND had tremendous service from bowlers like Scott Johnston, Joshua Brown, Freddy Walker and Rohit Gulati. Johnston and Brown offered seam bowling depth while Walker and Gulati offered spin bowling depth. ND didn't play with a specialist spinner in their last game vs Otago though which shows how effective Raval and Cooper were as all-rounders.

Kane Williamson and Tim Southee played one game each in Plunket Shield this summer. Williamson had a knock of 60 runs and Southee took 2w @ 2.2rpo in his 24 overs. Over the past decade there has been plenty of noise about ND having a team full of Blackcaps so it's worth highlighting that this dose of Plunket Shield glory came without most of those Blackcaps.

Tim Seifert scored 100 runs @ 125sr in his one game this summer. Along with Williamson and Southee (who was a Blackcap at the time of his one Plunket Shield game), these three are the only Blackcaps who played for ND this summer. Southee, Trent Boult, Colin de Grandhomme and coach BJ Watling have all departed the domestic circuit in recent years, while Daryl Mitchell and Ish Sodhi moved down to Canterbury.

No current Blackcaps player had more than one game for ND and they were undefeated as the only Plunket Shield team that didn't lose a game. Keen observers of domestic cricket will know that ND has plenty of young talent on the rise, specifically in the batting department. Snehith Reddy got a domestic contract at 17-years-old but didn't end up playing this summer while Xavier Bell and Aryan Mann are youngsters worth noting down.