In a couple days the Women's Big Bash League finals will be played and everything has worked out nicely for Sophie Devine's Perth Scorchers and the Brisbane Heat featuring Amelia Kerr and Maddy Green as they'll be playing in different semi-finals.
Melbourne Stars and Brisbane Heat are perched at the top of the Women's Big Bash League, quietly making up for the downbuzz absence of Sophie Devine and Suzie Bates.
Despite most of Aotearoa's Blackcaps Test squad playing in the Plunket Shield to start this summer, the squad features blokes coming into Test cricket from all different angles.
The first stanza of Aotearoa's Plunket Shield is all wrapped up and as we venture into the white ball realm, it's time to lay out a Plunket Shield First Stanza All Stars team.
Having been named in Aotearoa's T20 squad to face West Indies at the same time as they continue their dominance of kiwi cricket, it's fair to say that Kyle Jamieon and Devon Conway are the darlings of kiwi cricket right now.
The upcoming kiwi cricket summer once again has a hefty focus on T20 cricket and while that means the neglect of glorious Test cricket continues, balancing T20I and ODI fixtures makes sense given the international tournament structure.
If you're reading this, you know that Devon Conway has already kicked down the Blackcaps door to find Will Young meditating in patience as he waits on the stars to align and present a Blackcaps debut in any format.
After an almighty rough patch for the kiwi wahine in WBBL compared to the standard dose of kiwi WBBL dominance, Amelia Kerr has bagged 7w in her last two games while Sophie Devine cracked her first century of the tournament.
While deep in the mangroves with kiwi cricket matters, the funk around Tom Blundell's batsmanship has been permeating around the land of Aotearoa.
Three games down for Canterbury in Aotearoa's glorious Plunket Shield, with three wins in the zip-lock baggy.
Following Plunket Shield and domestic cricket fairly closely over the past few years would have been a prickly task for Otago Volts fans.
Compared to previous Kiwi-WBBL campaigns, the 2020 version is looking a lot like 2020 itself and considering that many of these White Ferns recently lost their Rose Bowl and T20I series vs Australia, it's all a bit stink.
Two rounds of Plunket Shield cricket are in the scoring books, which means we have two rounds of glorious four-day cricket for Aotearoa's Blackcaps and that smells like a nice moment to take stock of what's cracking.
Plunket Shield seam bowling in October, even stretching into November is perhaps one of Aotearoa's funkiest sports pockets and that's why the 14 bowlers who have taken 6+ wickets after two games are all of the seam variety.
Around Aotearoa as folks pondered various lockdown meditations, there was an air of certainty with regards to the 'next up' Blackcaps batsman permeating from the lands covered by ferns, manuka and kauri.
The Women's Big Bash League started with plenty of rain last weekend and unfortunately, the team who managed to get through their two game was Adelaide Strikers and Suzie Bates is still out nursing an injury.
Northern Districts Knights batsman Joe Carter was one of three players to pass 50 on the first day of Aotearoa's Plunket Shield round two and the Knights skipper went large with 146*.
Wrapping up round tahi of Aotearoa's Plunket Shield we've got a few runs for Tom Latham, Sean Solia's all-round skills and all the antics from a Northern Districts Knights vs Central Districts Stags game that was split in half.
What better way to start the kiwi cricket summer than a couple lower order hundies and piles of wickets?
Plunket Shield cricket is back and there is a wee bit of team selection funk to explore in the two games that started yesterday, while Otago Volts vs Auckland Aces sparks up today.