El Niche Cache
November 6, 2020
The Niche Cast Podcast
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Plunket Shield Round 2 Chat
The Niche Cast Warm Up: NBA Draft vs NBL Impact (RJ Hampton/LaMelo Ball)
Reading Menu
The Premmy Files – Women’s Premiership Week One (Cricket)
2020/21 Kiwi-WBBL #2 (Cricket)
Lydia Ko Mixtape: September/October, 2020 (Golf)
Flying Kiwis – November 3 (Football)
2020/21 Plunket Shield: Blackcaps Update (Cricket)
2020/21 Plunket Shield: Early Seam Landscape Notes (Cricket)
2020/21 Plunket Shield: Devon Conway's Chasing Pack (Cricket)
27fm Weekly Niche Cache Playlist: November 2 (Music)
27fm Album Jukebox – October 2020 (Music)
Scotty’s Word
Carlos Ulberg is City Kickboxing’s latest UFC fighter.
Yesterday, Carlos Ulberg won his fight on the Dana White Contender Series in Las Vegas (with Israel Adesanya and Brad Riddell in his corner) via first round KO. The most notable thing about Ulberg is how similar he is to Adesanya and that is a product of the CKB style as Ulberg had the same jerky, fake style that has made Adesanya and the other lads so dangerous. Remember this isn’t just with punch-fakes, it’s a twist of the hips to fake a kick and mini movements that either lure a mistake or set up a bunch of combos to come.
What’s unique for Ulberg is his kicking. Long legs, lots of whip on his kicks and it’s been mentioned a few times in recent days that Ulberg is the hardest kicker at CKB. Combine that with the plethora of ways Ulberg can disguise his kicks, along with the power in his hands (Ulberg dropped his opponent with a couple hooks) and there is intriguing scope for Ulberg in the UFC’s light heavyweight division - the division Adesanya enters to fight Jan Blachowicz.
As I explored in the series about CKB earlier this year, Aotearoa has a rich history in striking (boxing and kickboxing). That forms the foundations of CKB and all their UFC fighters are high quality strikers, who have built an adequate grappling base - which is required in the UFC coming up against wrestlers etc. CKB have done a great job at building this grappling base, mainly defensive grappling for the likes of Adesanya, Riddell, Dan Hooker etc and that’s the next step for Ulberg as he has the typically amazing background in kickboxing and his success in the UFC will depend on how he develops as a grappler.
And again, the best IPL bowlers are the best Test seamers.
Jasprit Bumrah (Mumbai): 27w @ 13.92avg/6.71rpo.
Kagiso Rabada (Delhi): 25w @ 19.48avg/8.30rpo.
Trent Boult (Mumbai): 22w @ 19.40avg/8rpo.
Jofra Archer (Rajasthan): 20w @ 18.25avg/6.55rpo.
Leo Carter loves a six.
Canterbury batsman Leo Carter smacked an over of sixes in the Super Smash last summer to catch headlines, although he’s kinda emerging as a six hitter in the Plunket Shield. It’s a niggly gauge time as we enter day two of Plunket Shield round three; as of Friday morning Carter leads the Plunket Shield with 6 sixes.
Carter has hit 22 sixes in 30 First Class games and that rolls out to 0.73 sixes per FC game. That is better than Carter six hitting in limited overs cricket as he hits 0.2 sixes per game in List-A cricket and 0.5 sixes in T20 cricket. Here’s how Cater’s six hitting compares to a couple intriguing batsmen in this category, (the Colin de Grandhomme numbers are Test cricket based as his Cricinfo profile doesn’t have his FC stats, otherwise it’s all FC cricket)...
Colin Munro - 2.85
CDG - 1.54
Tim Southee - 0.83
Leo Carter - 0.73
Doug Bracewell - 0.63
Devon Conway - 0.3
George Worker - 0.3
I’m off the rugby league beat for until next year, but I’ll keep some basic rugby league notes for these emails over the next two months.
-Emeliano Mikaele and Preston Riki played the only Canterbury Cup game for NZ Warriors earlier this year, both were named in the NZ Residents team to play Maori Residents on Sunday. Riki looks to be a low key forward prospect to keep an eye on.
-Semisi Sikei played on the wing for Counties Manukau in the National Premiership, alongside Mikaele. Earlier this year, Sikei started a bunch of games at prop for the Cronulla Sharks SG Ball team (Under 18) and that’s a funky double-whammy for 2020; prop for Under 18s, wing for Aotearoa men’s footy.
-Auckland Rugby League posted a thing about Sebastyan Jack making a couple beast plays in the Auckland vs Southern Under 18 game last weekend (try saver) (winning try). Jack was playing fullback for the Auckland team and he started five games in the halves for the NZ Warriors SG Ball team earlier this year; five games alongside Sione Moala who I’ve got as a major Warriors prospect.
-Worry less about NZ Warriors NRL headlines, invest in understanding what is happening at the lower levels and this will help you see how the club is changing, growing and moving forward.
Wildcard’s Notebook
I’ve been thinking a lot about Test cricket recently. The West Indies are in the country, training in their temporary quarantine with a couple Test matches on the way – after a cheeky T20 series, naturally. The two NZA tour games take place beginning in two weeks on Saturday (a three dayer, then two days off, then a four dayer), while the first Test begins on Thursday 3 December. A little over a month still to go, dammit. Almost as tiresome as waiting for election results.
Most of the Blackcaps squad picks itself, we already know that. There are some concerns over injuries as a number of Blackcaps are currently missing from the third round of the Plunket Shield... the ND trio of Southee, Wagner, CDG are all nursing seemingly minor niggles, probably just a matter of disguised rest more than anything but you never know. Henry Nicholls hasn’t played in any of these three rounds yet. Tom Latham is missing but only for a wedding however Matt Henry is gonna be touch and go for the Tests having broken a thumb taking throw-downs from Peter Fulton in the nets. That extra height, it’ll get ya. Big Pete doing a solid for the tall guy crew and Kyle Jamieson... as if he even needs it at the mo’. Ajaz Patel is also awaiting scans on a calf worry and hasn’t partaken in any Shield action to date.
Most of those fellas will be all goods for the Test matches, remember they’re still a month away. Even Matt Henry is a chance to recover. Which is what makes things funky because if the pace bowling trio of Tim Southee, Trent Boult & Neil Wagner are all available then they all have to play. There’s absolutely no doubt about that, this is what the three of them have achieved in home Test matches across the arbitrary period of the last five years...
WAGNER: 103 WKTS | 23.67 AVE | 44.7 SR
SOUTHEE: 100 WKTS | 23.40 AVE | 47.1 SR
BOULT: 94 WKTS | 24.71 AVE | 48.2 SR
Between them they have 14 five-fors... the entire rest of the Blackcaps combined have two. One was Colin de Grandhomme on the first day of his Test debut and the other was Kyle Jamieson also early on his his career, his second Test in this case. Jamieson has only played two Tests but his bowling average of 16.33 makes him currently the only dude outside the big three with an average in Aotearoa over the last five years under 31. Just a reminder that this is what Kylo has been up to this Plunket Shield so far...
After two rounds he had 15 wickets at an average of 8.80 and an economy of 2.36 runs per over. He’s swinging the ball both ways, he’s getting a bit of bounce and pace... he’s been borderline unplayable in spells and considering how he did against India in his first taste of Test cricket it’d be madness to leave him out in this kind of form. Which is easy to take care of if there are injuries but supposing there aren’t then... well, that’s still easy to do because kiwi spin bowlers have, in that same five year period as the big three did what they did up there, taken 30 combined wickets at an average of 46.27. In other words, as much as we wanna see spinners given more of a chance in this Blackcaps unit there’s absolutely no reason to be picking one against the Windies when we’ve got four blokes either with dominant track records or in the form of their life. And if you did really wanna pick a spinner – even though spinners aren’t exactly tearing it up on these green early season Shield wickets – then maybe CDG is the fella who oughta be looking over his shoulder.
The other bone of contention is the opening spot where we probably won’t have a clue as to what’s going on until we hear the NZA squads. The guys who were called up from outside the usual group last season were all coming from that NZA group that played against England at the start of the summer. Kyle Jamieson, Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Tom Blundell, Ajaz Patel, Will Somerville. No secret there as to what they were using the NZA team for, a proper old fashioned reserve team kinda set up which is beautiful too see – particularly for our own clarity. But the openers in that game were Rachin Ravindra and Hamish Rutherford. Then when Rutherford was ruled out with concussion after copping a Jofra Archer bouncer it was Tim Seifert who slid up to open instead. Seifert’s away at the IPL at the mo’ and wouldn’t be opening even if he was playing Plunket Shield. Rutherford’s not opening either and Ravindra... well, he’s been straight up terrible. 44 runs in his first five innings with a high score of 20.
Tom Blundell is the incumbent, sort of. He’s the dude who most recently did the job at least though there are definitely concerns about his longevity in the role. Fair play to him because he’s got runs on the board at the top level batting in a position that wasn’t natural to him... but while he’s giving that a good crack this deomestic season, as you would with a Test spot on the line, he’s yet to deliver. Through the first two rounds there was a genuine argument that he was the worst opener in the competition. He responded nicely at the end of day one of the third week with a few sharp boundaries but then he was caught behind the wicket early on day two for 31. Didn’t add to his overnight score and he’s now got 59 runs from five innings at an average of 11.80.
Here are the opening bat numbers from the first two rounds (keep in mind those updated Ravindra/Blundell numbers already mentioned...
Yeah... not a lot of clarity there. But once that NZA team is announced we should have a much better idea. Is Henry Cooper close enough to the mix to get a chance? Has Greg Hay’s remarkable consistency been passed over for the last time? Could a reinvigorated Jeet Raval be given another go? What about George Worker? It’s actually pretty exciting to have a batting convo that doesn’t include Devon Conway for once... although he might be seen as an option too, who knows. And there’s still a round and a half of Plunket Shield stuff to shuffle this deck further yet. God, I’ve missed cricket.