El Niche Cache
November 30, 2020
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The Year of Aotearoa's 'Champ Cheese' Brandon Smith (NRL)
The Summer Of Cricket Is Upon Us And It Shall Be Streamed (Cricket)
Summer Scene Setting For City Kickboxing (UFC)
It Actually Happened: Steven Adams Got Traded To The New Orleans Pelicans (NBA)
The Wildcard’s NFL Picks - Week 12 (NFL)
Aotearoa vs West Indies: Blackcaps Eve (Cricket)
Scotty’s Word
Plenty of kiwi sporting bits and bobs, although the cricket desk is sizzling. The Women’s Big Bash League finished up with minimal kiwi involvement in the final and I’ll wrap up the whole tournament in the coming days - no Hallyburton Johnstone Shield cricket in Aotearoa this weekend and that swings back around this coming weekend. Ford Trophy cricket started yesterday and there is another round of fixtures on Tuesday, plus those Blackcaps…
I’ll do a series wrap after today’s final T20I game and just from those first two games there is an abundance of talking points - best to let it simmer until the series is over and there are multiple games and scenarios to digest. Here’s a smorgasbord of thoughts…
Devon Conway’s recent cricket stuff…
157 (Plunket Shield), 46*, 41* (Aotearoa A four-dayer), 41, 65* (T20I).
When judging T20 stats, you’ll note that many batting averages are early-20s or below. Anything over 20 is all good with a strike-rate at least over 120, mid-20s is great with a good strike-rate and anything above those markers is genuine quality. Not only does Conway average 40+ in First-Class and List-A cricket, he has a T20 average of 40.82 and as I’ve explored in these emails before; Conway’s T20 average is currently ranked 11th all time.
Virat Kohli (10th), KL Rahul (6th) and Auckland’s Rob O’Donnell (2nd) are the only active players with a T20 average better than Conway’s.
Glenn Phillips’ 2020…
50 on Test debut in early January vs Australia.
Won the Ford Trophy with Auckland Aces, although Phillips did most of his 308 runs @ 61.60avg/91.39sr in the November first stanza.
2nd in Caribbean Premier League runs with 316 runs @ 35.11avg/127.41sr.
130 runs @ 224.13sr in two T20I games vs West Indies.
In that century Phillips smacked yesterday, he scored more runs than he has scored in 8inns with Kane Williamson as captain. Phillips has played 9 games with Williamson as skipper for just 81 runs.
As we are currently witnessing, things are super funky with Blackcaps team selections and this was noted in commentary as Colin Munro and Kane Williamson are absent, opening up batting spots. I’ve harped on about Hamish Rutherford a fair bit in recent weeks under the T20 umbrella and on top of a healthy T20 Blast campaign this year in England, Rutherford smacked 97 @ 164.40sr in the Ford Trophy for Otago Volts yesterday.
Deeper down the depth chart, I’m keeping a close eye on Bayley Wiggins for Central Districts Stags after he had scores of 98, 3 and 103 in the Ford Trophy last summer. To start this summer, Wiggins cracked 44 @ 157.14sr and he’s currently cruising along with 248 runs @ 62avg/104.20sr in List-A cricket.
Those are two ends of the spectrum as we have Rutherford who is a veteran with a solid record who will need the stars to align for more T20I cricket and Wiggins who has shown rather nifty hitting early in his career. This isn’t specifically about these two blokes, more about the situation or landscape and maybe lads like Mark Chapman, Tom Bruce, Henry Nicholls want to contribute to this T20I mix. No Williamson or Munro, with plenty of options to explore, and that adds further funk to how Munro fits back in after his BBL adventure.
Speaking of Chapman, as we know he founded ESCU Sport which produces protective equipment for batsmen in Aotearoa and overseas. Now we have Lockie Ferguson and his older brother Mitch who created Machineroad which is designed to film, measure and break down bowling…
Wildcard’s Notebook
Ain’t it grand having Blackcaps cricket back? It must be a psychological thing because I actually extremely enjoyed back to back T20 internationals and am very much pumped for a third one this evening. Part of which is definitely the long wait in between games, part of which is definitely the symbolic dawning of the summer season.
But also I think there’s just a freshness about that Blackcaps T20 side which comes with actually picking your best players. Watching Devon Conway and Glenn Phillips get to work in both those first two games was a beautiful thing, two players who have done supremely well in all three domestic formats over multiple years (especially Conway who topped the run scoring in each last season, an unprecedented triple threat), and to see them translate that success into this level... how good!?
We talked on the last podcast about some of the selection stagnation that’s been evident in the T20 stuff from this team. Often T20 is used as the easy avenue to international cricket for fringe players and to be fair you can say they’ve done that again with Devon Conway but it’s only a matter of time before he’s playing the other formats too. Meanwhile Kyle Jamieson came in having already played ODIs and Tests, making his T20 debut last of all. And Phillips has a Test match half-century on debut to his name (he had already played 11 previous T20Is but clearly this weekend was when he truly became an international calibre player like his potential has always suggested he would).
Three players who haven’t been a regular part of the T20 scene lately but players who have more than earned their place. Compared to, say, Hamish Bennett who is there as a sort of veteran shrug of the shoulders, having been part of the team that played India last time the Blackcaps played T20s. He didn’t do particularly well back then... and his game at Eden Park was one of the worst individual outings for the Blackcaps in recent memory. 2.3 overs with 0 wickets for 50 runs. One delivery slipped out of his hands and went a mile up in the air and then backwards for a dead ball. Another two were dangerous full tosses which caused him to be mercifully removed from the bowling crease in his third over. Yikes.
All of which is going to cause some of those happy headaches that coaches and selectors like to talk about where players who are kinda on the outside looking in are now getting a chance with others injured/rested and they’re asking some serious questions about those incumbents. Colin de Grandhomme is gonna struggle to get back in given he’d only really been playing as a batsman. Even Tim Seifert (who’s glovework is really improving, gotta say) is under pressure given that Kane Williamson oughta come back into that top four and both Conway and Phillips can keep part-time. Not to mention Colin Munro who seems to have been booted but a dominant Big Bash series might change that.
Let alone what’ll happen with the bowling crew. Lockie Ferguson is a dead cert. Mitch Santner and Ish Sodhi and gonna play most games. But are Tim Southee and Trent Boult truly in the first XI in T20s? Not saying they aren’t but Kyle Jamieson is also quite good and he’s not alone in knocking at the door so it’s a question that needs to be asked and answered earnestly.
I thought Spark Sport did really well. I had zero issues chromecasting the second game, high quality video and no lagging. Perfect work. Some of the content side of things does need work and the commentary hierarchy seems a bit undefined but those things will become more comfortable as they get more reps. Brendon McCullum is already standing out as a star analyst. Also must admit this... I thought Mark Richardson was fantastic in that second game. Struck a great balance with his humour, stuck to talking about the cricket and not dumb stuff, and with a bit more responsibility within the broadcast he delivered. Even Craig McMillan was quite good, actually. It threw me off guard when his voice was the first thing heard on the first Spark broadcast but having him trying to be Richie Benaud is clearly better than having him trying to be Bill Lawry or Tony Greig (probably Tony Greig given the shared propensity for cheesecutter hats)... which actually ends up being more like Justin Marshall. Didn’t get any audible off-mic oohs and ahs from Macca which is a new record for him.
The rhythm was off with some of Sonia Gray’s sideline interviews but that’s the kind of thing you can’t prepare for so I’d expect that to be a quick rise towards betterness. The only one who struggled was Rebecca Rolls and honestly I thought the other comms had a lot of responsibility for that. It’s all well and good getting more female voices in the box, especially when Spark are also major broadcasters for the White Ferns and it makes more sense to have one rotating crew rather than paying more people less money to have two separate crews (let alone how terrible that would look from an equality standpoint) but a comms box full of ex-pros is gonna have a blokey atmosphere and it’s up to those fellas to be more accommodating. Long awkward silences and then sharp changes of topic are not accommodating. Live commentary is really hard. The one time Rollsy really came into her own was when talking with McCullum about wicket-keeping... that’s how you do it.
All in all though, nothing to complain about. I thought the whole package was pretty great. They even teased a few tasty analytical graphics... probably my favourite moment was when Ian Bishop spoke with Lockie Ferguson about fast bowling tactics, that kinda deep-in-the-weeds analysis is just fascinating. More of that, please.
Moving on to some Premiership action now and here’s the Men’s Prem Team of the Week for Week 3:
GK – Alex Paulsen (Wellington Phoenix) – Lil bit of a weird one because Paulsen let in four goals and had an absolute shocker for the fourth of them... but in a week where there weren’t a lot of top quality keeper performances, in which the only clean sheet was an easy one for Eastern Subs, Paulsen was brilliant right up until that mistake and kept his team in it far longer than they deserved to be. Every time I watch him play he impresses me.
RB – Justin Gulley (Team Wellington) – Given the unenviable task of replacing Jack-Henry Sinclair on the right but Gulls was great against Waitakere. Solid in defence as you’d expect but also his crossing was huge for the TeeDubs, setting up one goal and he probably should have had at least one more assist.
CB – Taylor Schrijvers (Team Wellington) – Another TeeDubs defender. Schrijvers was influential in quieting Alex Greive, so well positioned but also aggressive in the challenge. Plus he created a few things stepping up in possession too.
CB – Bill Robertson (Hawke’s Bay United) – The veteran once more. HBU flirted with a famous win at Kiwitea Street but eventually fell agonisingly short... the reason they were in it for so long though was having such smothering defensive structure, led by Robbo, really roughing up the ACFC attackers and taking them out of their rhythm. Just a shame they didn’t get the biscuits as a reward.
LB – Robi Sabo (Eastern Suburbs) – Seriously, there’s just no end to the Ole Academy production line is there? Sabo quietened down in the second half but it was the first 45 against the WeeNix, linking up with Adam Thurston, where Suburbs set the tone for what would eventually be a 4-0 triumph. To put into context how well Sabo & Thurston were going: the WeeNix subbed off their right back at half-time.
CM – Sam Burfoot (Waitakere United) – Could be here most weeks, tbh. In a game where the TeeDubs back three really crowded out those central areas where Waitakere had been having a lot of success through Alex Greive, they could have easily gone down 3-1 or 4-1. But Burfoot was one of those fellas that never gave up. His set piece delivery was a constant threat, setting up the first goal, and he kept the engine running in the middle long enough for them to snatch a late equaliser.
CM – Mario Ilich (Auckland City) – Possibly the only ACFC player to go above and beyond in a frustrating but ultimately successful outing against Hawke’s Bay. City stuttered so much of the way with bad finishing and a lack of creativity but time after time they kept rolling the dice until finally they came up victorious. Ilich was the guy at the base of midfield tirelessly resetting the deck for all those attacks... mixed gambling metaphors but you get the idea.
CM – Adam Thurston (Eastern Suburbs) – Nothing much to say beyond what was already said last week. Thurston has been borderline unplayable the last two games, elevating Suburbs into genuine contender status. Scored twice more this week and was so good that I’ll overlook him missing a penalty for his hatty.
FW – Tommy Semmy (Hamilton Wanderers) – HW had a clear directive to get Semmy one on one with a defender out on the left as often as possible. That plan was exactly how the first goal came about as Semmy assisted for Tieku and then he scored one of his own later on after a defensive giveaway. So good to have Semmy back to his best.
FW – Joao Moreira (Team Wellington) – Rewarded with the start after scoring the winner off the bench last week, scored another sharp goal here and probably should’ve won a penalty too. JM brings some fascinating unpredictability to the TW attack and he was a thrilling outlet all game long (until being replaced with seven mins to go). Outstanding from him.
FW – Stephen Hoyle (Eastern Suburbs) – Got his first goal of the season not even four minutes in against the WeeNix but it was his constant power and energy up front which really stood out. This is as fit as he’s looked for a couple years and surrounded by nimble, skilful forwards he’s able to combine so nicely while still being a focal point up top. Gotta love a striker who does the subtle stuff too.