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***Official New Zealand Domestic Season 2021/22***

nzfan

International Vice-Captain
Didn't catch much cricket of late but looks like it's all done and dusted for the season. Aces came in late and blew everyone away. Won 5 out of 7 games, one abandoned and one drawn. Truly deserving winners. CD, Firebirds and Volts never really got going. Canterbury and ND were steady.

Covid opened up lots of spots this year. ND fielded 7 debutants in their last game. Bit bizzare firebirds fielded several players ignoring the contracted players. Robinson and Vishvaka had to play given they had gone fairly well but Lauchie Johns made a come back in place of Callum McLachlan who had a pretty good game the last game he played vs ND batting low down the order. Callum is contracted but Lauchie was cut this season but found a place. Newton had reasonable couple of games with the bat and ball but made way for Hartshorn. Didn't watch much of it so hard to make a call on the debutants from ND.

Will Sommerville didn't bowl a ball in the game vs CD but batted at no.6

CD: Tom Bruce scored nearly 900 runs this season and averaged 143 including two double hundreds. Schmulian, Hay and Cleaver contributed quite heavily as well. Toole, Tickener and Bracewell were the pick of the bowlers for CD. Ajaz bowled good number of overs without lots of wickets.

Auckland: Rob O'Donnell was a standout bat for Auckland, 2 hundreds and 2 fifties in like 7 innings. Solia, Glen Phillips and Guptill also contributed heavily. Simon Keene was unbelievable, took 23 wickets at a strike rate of 23. Great start to his career. Has very repeatable action and seems takes wickets bowling good balls. Definitely one for the future. Hopefully with age he gets stronger and starts to bowl quicker. Solia, Lister, Sommerville all chipped in consistently with the ball.

Otago: Nick Kelly for Otago was excellent with Hamish Rutherford not too far behind and Dale Phillips was very good with the bat. Generally came short with the ball, Rippon took good number of wickets at a high average but at least he struck frequently and bowled lots of balls (227 overs in all), over 30 overs per game.

ND: Jeet Raval found his mojo and scored reasonable runs for ND. CDG, Santner, Popli, Cooper all contributed with the bat when available. Randell was outstanding through out the season, highest joint wicket taker for the season along with Nathan Smith. Joe Walker was steady through out.

Firebirds: Troy Johnson had reasonable run for Firebirds and Rachin contributed here and there later in the season but no big scores to show. Hands down Nathan Smith was the best bowler followed by Sears. Bit of a shame Sears made sparse appearances, bowled about 104 overs in all in a season in PS. While Nathan Smith doubled that. Both Smith and Sears were expected to perform and should come as no surprise. The only good thing to come out of this season for Firebirds is the performances of Vishvaka and Robinson. That is truly good for the future. Vishvaka needs some work but he's done his best with whatever at his disposal. Robinson definitely looks like a player ready to slot into every format and should do well. The selections were very inconsistent and the side was chopped and changed every game. Not sure what the management was trying to do but I think we have finished the season with lot of unanswered questions. Firebirds scored under 200 8 times, over 200 and under 250 twice, over 250 and under 300 twice. Only once over 300 runs. In contrast Firebirds bowled opponent out under 200 twice, one vs Otago the first game of the season and the last one vs what was ND A.

Canterbury: Bowes, Fletcher and McConchie were steady for Canterbury with the bat. Latham and Nicholls when available chipped in with good runs. Shipley definitely the pick of the bowlers although he didn't bowl lots of overs. Will Williams was steady as usual but the rest of the bowlers didn't chip as much as they would have hoped. Matt Henry took most wickets for Canterbury.

I'd say Tom Bruce, Rob O'Donnell, Simon Keene and Nathan Smith were stand outs for the season.

Most disappointing like it is every season is no stand out with the ball as for spin is concerned. Sommerville by far the best spin bowler followed by Rippon. We know Sommerville is probably done as for Black Caps is concerned. Just banking on Ajaz Patel is probably not going to help. Shows we have made no headway in this department. Either it's lack of quality spin bowling or we're still not giving enough for spinners to work with.

Far out... I lost some of my post while trying to make a change. It was about the change of action of Rachin in the last game. Never mind though
 
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jcas0167

International Debutant
Great summary! As good as Don Neely or Lynn McConnell's writing in the Cricket Annual that used to come out until the early 90's. In terms of spin bowling it was a shame Tim Pringle wasn't able to play that final game, he and Ashok seem to be the main upcoming spin prospects.
 

nzfan

International Vice-Captain
Great summary! As good as Don Neely or Lynn McConnell's writing in the Cricket Annual that used to come out until the early 90's. In terms of spin bowling it was a shame Tim Pringle wasn't able to play that final game, he and Ashok seem to be the main upcoming spin prospects.
Yeah a real shame both didn't feature in PS. I thought Ashok would be drafted but no sight of him. There's still one more game to go and with Aces already winning the title hoping they do play Ashok.
 

nzfan

International Vice-Captain
Pretty sure nzfan has done a few summaries in his time for more people than us punishers
PS has been a massive passion. Not so much other domestic formats. Loved the days when you could listen to PS on radio and get on with house work. The YouTube isn't a bad option though. Would have been nicer if they had more than one fixed camera. Been pushing for it for firebirds but been falling to deaf ears. There seems to be a conflict of contract with nzc signed up with NVPlay. Imagine if we had 6 fixed cameras on every first class grounds and had someone commenting on the games like they do in county. It doesn't cost much for cameras these days. Recall counties spending no more than like 25k to get it going.

NZC should let the provinces sign up their own sponsors and make their own deals. If they can do that there's no doubt we could have all matches live in YouTube with 6 fixed cameras and commentary. Shame we don't know how to sell the game in this time and age
 

nzfan

International Vice-Captain
There's storm brewing and going to hit North Island hard. This last game is not of great purpose but very glad to see so the likes of Guptill, Chapman, Nicholls show up. You have to laud Guptill, he is not considered a red ball player for Black Caps, nearly coming to end of his career and the returns as for cash for a 4 day game is meagre but he still turns up to help Aces. That is outstanding attitude by an outstanding player. Same with the Nicholls, his place is not under any sort of threat but still shows up when Canterbury needs him.
 

jcas0167

International Debutant
Hamish Bennett retires. Had a great second half to his career with Wellington and making it back into the Black Caps. His move to Wellington coincided with something of a golden era for the side in limited overs comps.

 

nzfan

International Vice-Captain
Hamish Bennett was great to watch when on song. Canterbury played him far less than he deserved. Had injuries early on but should have ideally played a lot more for Canterbury and black caps. Took out Kohli at peak several times. Did really well for firebirds and helped a lot of up and coming fast bowlers. He'll be engaged in some coaching capacity for firebirds surely.

Luke Georgeson an interesting case. He's quality enough to play for black caps down the line but then firebirds dropped him and played him in red ball only predominantly. He's way better than that. He's taken the Ireland route to play international cricket which is not bad. If his intention is to play for black caps he'd have to wait for lots of years. Hope Ireland plays him right away and in all formats. Great for him personally but a loss for Firebirds and black caps.
 

nzfan

International Vice-Captain
I'm happy for the likes of Vishvaka, Robinson etc but we barely saw Luke Georgeson play for firebirds the second half of the season. I get a feeling this must have played a massive part in his move to Ireland. He's on the bench in a domestic side in NZ and Ireland offers him a full contract. He'll get paid way more and more importantly he'll get to play. Who would pass that?

I think firebids mismanaged him. He should have been given way more chances than they did.

Likely few changes coming up for firebids, 2 or 3 players moving out of Wellington I hear

We definitely need a change of leadership and maybe even coaching personnel. I can list a lot of things they did wrong this season. Need some fresh ideas and some consistency in selection. Need some batters ASAP. Come to think of it, Ravindra playing half the PS still probably scored the most runs for firebirds and I don't think he had a great season either for firebirds.

Conway will barely play much for firebirds for the next 3-4 years. Chances are Ravindra will likely not be available much either. Time ripe to poach some batters from other regions. From Wellington perhaps Vishvaka, Robinson and Greenwood can be persisted. Don't know what's going on with Bhula, it's been worrying he's not taken off at all. I think he may have been playing for firebirds for the last 4 years.

Troy Johnson seems to be the leader of the pack with the bat now for firebirds.
 

HeathDavisSpeed

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
It seemed odd that Georgeson was dropped when he was. Is there a chance that he’d signalled that he was opting for an Ireland contract earlier which led to Wellington dropping him (or contributing to that decision)? Or was it simply mismanagement as you suggest?
 

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