Last summer, Canterbury Magicians finished last in Aotearoa's Super Smash with the worst net run-rate and tied for the worst record as they went 2-8 in their 10 games. Now Canterbury are Super Smash champions.
In two weeks’ time there’s a rather significant boxing match gonna take place. Joseph Parker versus Junior Fa, you may have heard about it?
Aotearoa Test cricket funk is percolating away in the background and we are also up to our neck in T20 cricket.
This Super Smash All Stars team strongly resembles a White Ferns T20I 1st 11 and that's due to how these women have performed in the Super Smash, along with me designing a team that can go head to head with the best T20I teams in the world.
To take stock of what's gone down in the Super Smash for the blokes, there is no better task than assembling the Niche Cache All Stars to do battle with anyone who wants the T20 niggle.
We fans are only human, there’s only so much adoration we can spread around. Which explains why not enough people seem to be giving Tom Latham his due credit as one of the very best openers in Test cricket.
Aotearoa's Super Smash is close to winding up, with a trio of games to be played later this week before we move into finals cricket.
While there is funk in how the Super Smash competitive winds up, the big business here is Blackcaps T20I selection for the series against Australia and sorting out the best T20I squad for upcoming T20 World Cups.
As the final wicket fell at Hagley Oval, Trent Boult getting Zafar Gohar caught off a big slog that went straight up in the air, the Blackcaps completed their Test summer with four wins from four.
There is one more cluster of Super Smash games to come though, along with Blackcaps and White Ferns T20I cricket to suss out and that serves up a nice platform to explore other pockets of Super Smash funk.
Culture, specifically team culture is an elusive yet crucial element of sporting success and here in Aotearoa we tend to do team culture fairly well.
Having seen Sophie Devine step back into Aotearoa's Super Smash and tonk 10 sixes in 64 balls for Wellington Blaze as well as Ross Taylor playing a standard Roscco T20 innings of 48* @ 177.78sr to steer Central Districts Stags to a win over Otago Volts, there' some funky White Ferns and Blackcaps context to what is happening in both Super Smash competitions.
The upcoming cluster of Aotearoa Women's Super Smash games will see a double dose of Wellington Blaze, Northern Spirit and Canterbury Magicians which is rather convenient as these three teams are all well poised to challenge Auckland Hearts in the top spot.
Despite playing just one game over the past 11 days, Wellington Firebirds are still leading the Aotearoa Men's Super Smash as the only undefeated team.
Wrapping up the Aotearoa Test summer with Blackcaps coaching/training, kiwi spin, the nek tier and some wider summer trends.
For those who have been tapped in on Aotearoa Blackcaps Test matters for the past five years, the 2020/21 Test summer saw the same consistent domination of touring teams that we seen served up each summer.
As Aotearoa's Blackcaps stack up records on records in Christchurch, the Super Smash is on pause for a couple of days ahead of what will be a splash of T20 mayhem to take us deeper into 2021.
All of which has led the Blackcaps and us kiwi cricket fans to this moment where everything is tremendous with one common factor throughout he growth of the Blackcaps being Tim Southee.
Where does thou begin when five days of Test cricket contained so much juice? Aotearoa's win over Pakistan wasn't just compelling viewing because it was five days of pure Test cricket delight.
After a double-double dose of Wellington Firebirds and Blaze to start Aotearoa's Super Smash, the next cluster of games saw Otago Volts and Sparks play a couple of games each.