Big Donnies
Domestic Cricket Nuggets, Flying Kiwis Transfer Tracker, Joseph Parker's Next Move & Steven Adams Recognition
Podcast
The Niche Cast: Nature Is Perfect (Blackcaps vs Bangladesh)
Reading Menu
Maddy Green's Found A Low Key Crucial Pocket Of Form (Cricket)
The Murky Mangroves of Ajaz Patel Bowling in Aotearoa (Cricket)
Aotearoa vs Bangladesh: Congrats Bangladesh (Five Key Things From The First Test) (Cricket)
Finn Allen Is Aotearoa's Funkiest Domestic Cricketer (Cricket)
The Welly Nix Blokes Are Now Officially In ‘Searching For Solutions’ Mode (Football)
Flying Kiwis – January 4 (Football)
Gotta Keep This First Welly Nix Women’s Season In Context (Football)
Kiwi Steve in the NBA #5: Too Big, Too Strong (Basketball)
The Breakers Are Not A Very Good Basketball Team Right Now (And You Can't Just Blame Covid) (Basketball)
Scotty’s Word
Basic Super Smash update…
And here’s a deep cut yarn for each domestic cricket team…
Northern Blokes: Anurag Verma is still a low key T20 monster. Currently 5th in wickets (9w @ 12.66avg/6.64rpo/11.4sr) and those efficiency stats (avg/rpo/sr) are all better than Lockie Ferguson who has 10w. Verma has a fantastic T20 record of 22.92avg/8.64rpo/15.9sr.
Northern Wahine: No players in the top-10 for runs or wickets. Brooke Halliday burst into the White Ferns last summer and as skipper, she has 46 runs @ 11.50avg/92sr. Halliday is the only WF in the Northern team and while being good with the ball (6w @ 5.46rpo/15sr), Halliday isn’t quite commanding a World Cup nod. More relevant there is her HBJ Shield stuff (one-dayers) and she’s only played one game with 24 runs.
Auckland Blokes: Lots of big donnie stuff with Auckland as Lockie Ferguson’s their best bowler (10w @ 15avg/6.87rpo/13.1sr) and their best batters are Mark Chapman (154 runs @ 124sr), George Worker (144 runs @ 113sr) and Martin Guptill (135 runs @ 125sr). My favourite Auckland thing though is catching Adithya Ashok emerge and the nifty leggy has had a solid start to his career with 6w @ 6.54rpo/22sr. Auckland have three spinners with Ashok joined by Louis Delport and Will Somerville, which will lead to tough decisions in must-win games; we may be saying ka kite to Somerville as a top-tier spinner.
Auckland Wahine: No Auckland bowler in the top-15 for wickets which is funky because Holly Huddleston is competing for a World Cup spot, while Fran Jonas was anointed as the best young spinner and Molly Penfold the best young seamer in Aotearoa. All three have a lot to play for in chasing WC selection and yet Auckland have no bowled a team out in their six games, while only taking more than 5w in two games against Northern - who are last.
Shout out Auckland captain Lauren Down though who is commanded WF selection. Down has a century and halfie in 3inns of HBJ Shield (206 runs @ 68.66avg) as well as being 7th in Super Smash runs (136 runs @ 97.14sr.
(Written before today’s Central vs Wellington game)
Central Blokes: Fascinated to see how CD perform to finish the Super Smash as they are currently 4th (3-4) and face Wellington this afternoon, plus CD have the best batters and bowlers in the SS. Seth Rance is 2nd for wickets and Doug Bracewell is 8th, with support from Blair Tickner and Tom Bruce. Dane Cleaver, Greg Hay and Bruce are the three leading run-scorers in the entire SS. Watch how this plays out for CD as we might learn something about domestic and T20 cricket here.
Central Wahine: Another awkward WF team. Like Auckland, CD wahine have WF bowlers like Hannah Rowe, Rosemary Mair and Claudia Green who are all competing for World Cup selection. Meanwhile, CD are level on points with Northern (1-6) and their seven games have seen them take more than 5w in three games. Goes without saying that CD are yet to dismiss their opponent yet and they have no bowler in the top-10 for wickets.
(Written before today’s Central vs Wellington game)
Wellington Blokes: Mandatory Finn Allen update: 7th for runs, 177 runs @ 203.44sr. T20 career strike-rate of 174.45sr.
Wellington are 3-3 and this is funky because they are the only kiwi cricket team who can lay claim to a Super Smash dynasty. No Devon Conway or Rachin Ravindra as they are Test squad regulars now and I’m not too fussed about this as Wellington have Tim Robinson (young gun), Michael Bracewell and Troy Johnson (young gun) all doing solid mahi with the bat. For Wellington Blokes to finish the SS strong, they’ll need Hamish Bennett (5w @ 35.40avg/8.42rpo/25.3sr) and Nathan Smith (4w @ 35.50avg/10.92rpo/19.5sr) to step up. These two are usually really good and given Wellington’s batting unit, all that’s required is a bit more efficiency.
Wellington Wahine: Wrote about Maddy Green’s Super Smash and HBJ Shield here.
Wellington are 1st (6-0) and Sophie Devine is yet to play a game. Not quite Otago Sparks level of fun for me personally, but Wellington wahine are a fantastic cricket team and like Otago you will catch Aotearoa’s top-tier talent and young talent shining in the same team. Wellington have both Kerr sisters and Leigh Kasperek on fire, which is in contrast to Auckland/CD WF. They also have young bowlers Xara Jetly and Maneka Singh who continue to impress with consistent SS opportunities.
Canterbury Blokes: Cameron Fletcher is 4th in runs (199 runs @ 153sr) and has quietly stacked up a fabulous T20 record of 35.73avg/131sr across 76 games. Dane Cleaver is in hot form for CD and these two are right there with Tim Seifert (ND) as the next up wicket-keepers. Aotearoa needs all three in decent form, competing hard with each other.
Canterbury Wahine: Nicely poised in 3rd (3-4), Canterbury need some extra juice to defend their Super Smash wahine crown. That juice last season was Kate Ebrahim and maybe Lea Tahuhu’s bowling will help. Tahuhu just started bowling again and has 3w @ 4.50rpo in 6 overs so far and while it’s been fun to watch Tahuhu dominate as the best slugger not named Sophie Devine, Canterbury need her bowling.
Tahuhu’s slugging is extra important as Canterbury aren’t the most swashbucklin’ batting unit. This was evident in yesterday’s loss to Auckland where Frances Mackay and Amy Satterthwaite scored enough runs, but couldn’t up the ante when required. Mackay is 4th in runs with 89.40sr and Satterthwaite is 6th in runs with 93.92sr, both of which need to be up over 100sr.
Otago Blokes: Last in SS with a 1-6 record. Not much doing here and Otago are probably the least funky SS team on the blokes side. I keep bringing up Jacob Duffy and this is one of the weirder yarns in Aotearoa cricket as he’s got 3w @ 86.33avg in SS, plus 7w @ 49.42avg in the Plunket Shield. Duffy has been decent in the Ford Trophy with 8w @ 22.87avg, but this feels like an example of certain players who will soon be overtaken by the young wave.
Otago Wahine: 2nd on the ladder, Otago are 6-2 and both losses have come vs Wellington. Keep that tucked away for a possible Wellington vs Otago final, as well as the various match ups that feature within this rivalry. Big donnie WF lead both teams, while Otago’s crew of Eden Carson, Emma Black, Molly Loe and Sophie Oldershaw are all top-10 for wickets and under 25yrs. If these bowlers and Wellington’s J-Kerr/Jetly/Singh crew can step up, why can’t those Auckland and CD bowlers competing for World Cup selection?
Wildcard’s Notebook
Joseph Parker, What Up?
Curious... very curious.
Luis Ortiz had the first shot at Filip Hrgovic for the IBF eliminator title and he turned it down. Ortiz is fresh off a thrilling knockout win over Charles Martin in which he hit the deck twice himself but came back to get a ruthless stoppage as per usual from the Cuban slugger. He’s often been a guy that folks claimed others would duck out of fear of his dangerous power except now here he was at age 43 ducking out of probably his closest pathway to another title shot (his two career defeats came against Deontay Wilder). The official word was that it was injury preventing him from taking the fight.
In Ortiz’s place, Joseph Parker was therefore offered the Hrgovic fight. This was one that was talked up heavily around the time of his second win over Derek Chisora. Eddie Hearn was casually intrigued by it. Hrgovic’s managers were absolutely fizzing for it. After Ortiz turned it down, they tweeted that Parker vs Hrgovic would be “what boxing dreams are made of”. But clearly Parker and his camp disagreed because they’ve turned it down too.
Filip Hrgovic is a 29 year old Croatian heavyweight. He won bronze at the 2016 Olympics and has a 14-0 record as a pro with 12 wins by KO. Hasn’t beaten anyone on a contending scale yet – Eric Molina is probably the best scalp on his resume – but he’s rising quickly in the rankings is probably pushing a case to be a top ten heavyweight. Very tall which might have been a worry for Parker though he’d still have been the favoured fighter going into that match-up.
Maybe there just wasn’t quite enough to gain from that bout for JP though? Not when the promised title challenge that the eliminator title is supposed to come with likely to be overshadowed by a unification bout between Oleksandr Usyk/Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury.
Then you add in some complaints from David Higgins about how short-notice the IBF offer was and what terrible financial terms they were shown the last time they tried to negotiate with Hrgovic (prior to the first fight with Chisora) and the opportunity quickly loses its sheen. Ah well, so it goes. Parker’s camp appear to have other plans in mind anyway: word is that a team meeting after the last fight saw them come to the conclusion that it’s time to take on the USA market. Well now.
The San Diego Loyal By Dave Dobbyn
Gonna be honest, I was kinda hoping that the USL would fade into the background of the Flying Kiwis beat this year. It’s a weird competition, a second tier American competition with no upward progression available, which is of a very debatable quality in terms of developing kiwi players. Some do really well there and go on to good things, others disappear. Danny Hay didn’t pick a single player out of the USL for the last two All Whites tours despite the likes of James Musa, Deklan Wynne, Noah Billingsley, and Max Mata (all recent-ish internationals) presumably being available.
Not only that but now the MLS are trying to implement a new reserve division (MLS Next Pro) which eight different USL clubs are leaving to join, all existing MLS affiliates, along with 12 other MLS reserve teams and, for some reason, one independent team (Rochester New York FC). Sorta feels the USL becomes redundant with this new league. Well, mostly. Technically MLS Next Pro is gonna be the third tier, adjacent to USL League One. It’s all very sloppy.
So maybe file that at the back of the ol’ mind as we have a look at a bit of all this...
Not one but two kiwi signings, a pair of central defenders, heading to California. For Adams this is a parallel move. He’s dominated at USL level in the recent past with Rio Grande Valley and Real Monarchs but those two teams were kinda crap while he was there. RGV never made the playoffs in his three years and only once even really came close... then his Real Monarchs had the fourth worst record in the USL in 2021.
San Diego, however, cracked the conference quarters last year in only their second season in existence so that’s decent. Landon Donovan is their coach, the American legend. He’s also a part owner which will be awkward if he ever needs to be sacked. Obviously there’s no promotion from USL... but MLS does take expansion clubs from this level sometimes after they’ve proved their worth so you never know. Plus players are getting signed from USL by MLS clubs all the time... it even happened once to Kyle Adams when he went from Rio Grande Valley to their MLS parent club Houston Dynamo although he spent the whole season on loan with RGV again anyway.
Hunter Ashworth played for San Diego last year. Only got a couple of games before disappearing again – never did hear if that was injury related or what. Ashworth was born and raised in America but played youth internationals for Aotearoa. Now the Loyal have a pair of kiwi centre-backs to replace him.
Slightly strange from Nikko Boxall’s perspective though. As a regular for SJK in Finland these last couple years (captaining them many times) following a great stint with Viborg in the Danish second tier, he’s been one of the undercover brothers of the Flying Kiwis beat. Even scooped up a few All Whites caps along the way.
But this move is not one that strengthens his All Whites credentials, gotta be honest. There are other factors that come into these things though and Nikko Boxall did go to university in the States and you already know his brother Michael is an MLS standout with Michael Boxall. Meanwhile Kyle Adams didn’t just go to uni in that country... he went to uni at San Diego State University. The ol’ stomping ground. Righto then.
Elsewhere in the USL Championship...
Flying Kiwis Transfer Season Tracker
Logan Rogerson signs with FC Haka (Finland) from HJK (Finland) on 1 January [free]
Michael Woud signs with Kyoto Sanga (Japan) from Almere City (Netherlands) on 4 January [undisclosed fee]
Kyle Adams signs with San Diego Loyal (USA) from Real Monarchs (USA) on 5 January [free]
Nikko Boxall signs with San Diego Loyal (USA) from SJK (Finland) on 5 January [free]
Elliot Collier signs with San Antonio FC (USA) from Chicago Fire (USA) on 7 January [free]
Not a lot of rumours going around at the moment. Most kiwi players simply aren’t at a level where there will be rumours, they’ll just one day pop up in the news feed having signed somewhere. That’s what happened with Nikko Boxall for example. So on that buzz, we haven’t heard anything about Katie Bowen, Winston Reid, CJ Bott, Rosie White, etc. Yet to hear anything more on that Libby Cacace to Torino rumour either but fingers crossed that one’s proceeding behind the scenes.
There has been transfer talk about Joe Bell... the talk being that there’s been no talk. Eerily quiet on that front with Norwegian sources claiming that Viking have yet to receive any new approaches about him this month. Early days though. Their star striker Veton Berisha has been linked to Genoa in Italy.
Meanwhile FC Copenhagen are back in training after their winter break and it’s been confirmed that Marko Stamenic is with them after his loan to HB Køge. FCK have three friendlies later this month and a training camp in Portugal early February if things are able to go ahead as planned. Could still loan him out later on but for now he’s going to get another good training run with the first team same as he had before the season.
Dispatches From The Steven Adams Desk
Zach Lowe beginning his latest column with a proper yarn about Steven Adams’ value to the Memphis Grizzlies and the successful logic of that trade that brought him to town in the first place? Yeah that’s the good stuff, hook it into my veins.
So glad to see a major media voice actually highlighting the true purpose of that trade. It wasn’t a straight swap for Jonas Valanciunas. Which, sure, at face value would be a trade down for the Grizz. But it wasn’t that. First of all they also got first round pick Zaire Williams in that trade and he’s a very promising looking rookie with great athleticism and a silky shooting motion. Had a great first quarter against Detroit yesterday. He’s gonna be very decent in a couple years.
Then also there’s the stylistic thing. Adams doesn’t need to score. If his team wins and he scores zero points then he’s all good with that. He doesn’t need post-ups like Valanciunas gets (and, as Lowe says, deserves). He’s a facilitator whose screens and picks and rebounding allows the guys around him to thrive.
I used this point in a Kiwi Steve write-up a wee while back but I’ll say it again: Adams is taking exactly 5 field goal attempts per game this season whereas Valanciunas last season was cranking out 12 FGA per night. That’s seven additional shots that get to be spread out amongst the likes of Ja Morant, Desmond Bane, DeAnthony Melton, Dillon Brooks, etc.
Another nugget from Lowe’s bit: nearly half of Adams’ assists have gone to Desmond Bane.
Anyway, when you get done with reading Zach Lowe’s slice of Steven Adams, have a geeze at mine. A big old deep dive into his offensive rebounding... which leads the NBA in percentage, total, and average. The best in the business in other words.
