2020/21 New Zealand Domestic Season

[nzfan]

Watched both the games at the ground. Very befitting for finals both the games. Conway was again too smart and picked the gaps nicely. Allen has had a wonderful super smash and was bound get out a bit early at some point in time but by the time he got out he had scored runs at a fairly quick clip. Troy Johnson was amazing, came out guns blazing and took the sting out of the spinners early in the game. Thereafter it was never quite close barring maybe couple of overs towards the end. Last year they missed Jeetan Patel after like mid way and it didn't quite make a difference to the campaign. Similarly this year they missed Jimmy for few games and Ravindra for the last 2 or 3 but that didn't make a difference. Very well oiled machine the firebirds in super smash.

Sears I saw from the re-run on TV he bowled at 145 and that was down wind. Imagine with the wind? Easily could have breached 150k. Sure he bowled a bit full early on but made up by bowling good 3 overs later.

The women's was an absolute thriller. I still don't know how Blaze lost that after having nearly closed the game out. The hat trick from Kerr was amazing to watch at the ground.

The crowd has turned out in big numbers in Wellington, thankfully just before this frustrating covid level 2 locked down. Shows a good winning team draws good crowds even for domestic T20s.

 

[Bahnz]

Yeah, was lovely to be at the Basin with a half decent crowd in for a domestic game. About 5500 according to the ground announcer - not a patch on the kinda turnouts we used to get in the 90's for the final of the Shell Cup, but the best attendance for a domestic game that I've been to since probably the early 00's.

 

[Bahnz]

Finn Allen looked like he got a bit giddy and tried to slap everything around every ball? Going on highlights, mind you.

Conway is all class, would like to see him play one of the England Tests and become a fixture in the other two formats. Far too classy not to be

He's been doing this for the past few matches, his batting this season has reminded me a lot of 2015/16 McCulllum (in a good way), just wasn't middling it on Saturday.

 

[The Hutt Rec]

That crowd was definitely amazing, such a great atmosphere at the ground as well! Everything domestic cricket in NZ should be.

 

[nzfan]

Yeah, was lovely to be at the Basin with a half decent crowd in for a domestic game. About 5500 according to the ground announcer - not a patch on the kinda turnouts we used to get in the 90's for the final of the Shell Cup, but the best attendance for a domestic game that I've been to since probably the early 00's.

The crowd was one of the largest I've seen recently. Looked bigger than it is for some of the test matches on a weekend. The banks were choc o block. There were few empty seats in the upper decks and the newly reconstructed stands but it was quite an atmosphere. Reminded of the shell finals from the early 2000s.

 

[nzfan]

That crowd was definitely amazing, such a great atmosphere at the ground as well! Everything domestic cricket in NZ should be.

Wait for the ford trophy and plunkett shield to start there'll be few old men with their dogs or players' better halfs, parents or grand parents

That'll disappear too one of these days.

The T20 definitely is the most preferred game at domestic level for crowd attendance.

The near full crowd attendance despite junior, school and club cricket played on Saturday. I don't know if it was lack of planning or what I'd have thought they would not be playing any cricket to allow them to attend the finals at home. Some of the clubs weren't happy as you can imagine. If the grass root cricket was not on you'd think easily another couple of thousand would have made to the ground.

 

[Immenso]

Ever seen a bigger queue for the beer?

Something went awry in their planning.

 

[The Hutt Rec]

It’s not something Wellington cricket is great at, even in my playing days they’d often not move club cricket to Sundays when the blackcaps were playing ... then it would be a poor crowd and they’d say “oh, we’re sure club cricket being on the same day had no effect.”

The food area they have at the basin these days is great, but they do need to open some stuff at the other end of the ground as well ... the queue for anything, food or drink, looked like something I didn’t want to get involved in!

 

[nzfan]

Something I have noticed of late is the number of sponsors that is now supporting Cricket Wellington. Every now and then the DJ was mentioning sponsors at the ground and the list was quite long. Some years ago there was no more than one or two sponsors at the most. Now you see so many sponsors across board for Cricket Wellington. Even the junior cricket wellington sides gears like u13s, u15s etc have good looking kits with several sponsors logos. Cricket Wellington is also in the profit in the last couple of years. Kudos to the CEO Cam Mitchell and co. They have done a wonderful job overall.

Shows if you have quality players in the mix everything will fall in place like it should. I suppose eventually comes down the quality of players representing the province. There are so many players worth watching in this set up each player brings their own player base I suppose with them.

 

[The Hutt Rec]

Meant to also add, I remember heading to the Basin for super smash games ... I think it was the season or two after NZC had their disastrous Westpac stadium night game experiments. There were times it was about 20 people there for the first ball, no exaggeration! So very well done to NZC and Cricket Wellington, every home match is a big event now, they’ve done an excellent job.

 

[nzfan]

In the 90s if you were selected for Plunkett Shield you were told to bring your club clothing with you

About 5 years ago you had to have your own white trousers and only the top was provided for Plunkett shield. Now things have changed over all and players get more than enough clothing, helmets etc.

Players bought their own gears but now most have sponsors. Generally one or two players were sponsored in the 90s and the rest of the squad bought their own gears. Gears as in bats and stuff. Now even a no.11 domestic player from Wellington is fully kitted with sponsored gears. Pretty much owing to TV coverage of most games.

 

[Flem274*]

wellington have improved out of sight since pocknall, edgar etc got involved. back in the day despite having a core of good shield cricketers they were basically minnows thanks to dredging up random club hacks from australia to field ahead of wellington's younger players.

jamie siddons has a lot to answer for. he should stick to coaching players who want high backlifts and never head coach a professional side again.

 

[Immenso]

Anthony Stuart dredged the Australian grade players. They were already there and reasonably embedded when Siddons arrived.

I genuinely can't tell if Siddons is in the credit or debit column. Probably OK but resentment from Aussie invasion still festering in some clouding his tenure. Won the T20 in his last year I think? Or was that Edgar. The time they thought they had qualified for CLT20, but then it got canned for good.

 

[The Hutt Rec]

Edgar also did such a great job in his time as national selector ... underrated contributor to NZ cricket.

 

[Immenso]

The food area they have at the basin these days is great, but they do need to open some stuff at the other end of the ground as well ... the queue for anything, food or drink, looked like something I didn’t want to get involved in!

I didn't venture into the queue.

But played a game on Sunday, one of my team mates said it was a 45 minute queue. Buy a beer, go to the back of the queue straight away, and watch the game from the queue while sipping beer. Luckily you can see the field. No other scenario would make sense to me why anyone would bother queuing for 45 minutes.

The queue blocked 2 of the food caravans. Luckily nothing I was interested in. A smoothie place and something else.

 

[Bahnz]

I didn't venture into the queue.

But played a game on Sunday, one of my team mates said it was a 45 minute queue. Buy a beer, go to the back of the queue straight away, and watch the game from the queue while sipping beer. Luckily you can see the field. No other scenario would make sense to me why anyone would bother queuing for 45 minutes.

The queue blocked 2 of the food caravans. Luckily nothing I was interested in. A smoothie place and something else.

I grabbed a souvlaki from the Greek Food Truck because it was the only truck without a labyrthine queue. Was still waiting about 15 minutes (which really isn't that different from the amount of time you're waiting for food at the Sunday Market on the waterfront). Would be good to have a second food centre, maybe between the grandstands.

 

[Immenso]

Too late now, for the current T20WC cycle.

But after watching the final on Sunday, impressed by Will Williams.

I think he might be a sort of bowler that is now so out of fashion, that he might actually be effective at international level, due to lack of exposure to this type.

And this description may be damning with faint praise.

We've been giving opportunities lately to the tall and/or fast bouncy bowlers with plenty of variations, e.g. Kuggeleijn and Tickner. Maybe we should try Williams, as the accurate medium pacer.

In days gone by, this type of bowler would be seen as the middle-overs bowler in white ball. Like Larsen. But Williams bowled his first over in the 16th, then bowled 18th and 20th. Almost 3 overs of accurate medium paced death bowling yorkers.

Worth a crack, Nigel. I reckon.

Now. After typing all this. I've decided to look up his season stats rather than just relying on watching one game ......

https://archive.nzc.nz/Events/Dream_11_Super_Smash_2020-21/Bowling_by_Average.html

Not actually that good. 12 games, 8 wickets, ave 32.87, ER 9.74

Neither is his career record: https://archive.nzc.nz/Players/1065/1065192/1065192.html

So, bring up a more general discussion point:
If he's bowling almost exclusively death overs. Is 9.74 acceptable? (I've looked at a few scorecards now, from this season, and that seems the pattern by my guesswork)
Offset by him almost never bowling in power play?

 

[nzfan]

Nothing wrong in being a bowler like Will Williams but then you should have other skills too to be picked as his skills are lot easier to emulate by other players. Perfect no.8 bat if he could bat that is. Bowl 2-3 overs including couple in the death and smash like 6-8 balls 20 runs. Without batting his bowling just couldn't stand a chance at international cricket unfortunately.

 

[kaetor]

Tbh Will Williams had a few shockers at the death this season. He's not quite consistent enough with the yorker length to play higher honours yet imo. He bowls a really great line which works for the FC stuff, but when batsmen get inventive in the T20s being slightly off at the slower place is a recipe for disaster.

England tried a similar player recently, Pat Brown, who did seem relatively effective but also ran a little hot and cold from game to game.

 

[Flem274*]

williams is more of a fc bowler imo. just need to see him on late season motorways first.