Fishing for Dratini
Lots of kiwi cricket, Welly Nix squads are growing, Steven Adams' Memphis Grizzlies debut & more
Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 37
The Niche Cast - Kiwi UAE Party
Reading Menu
Building 2021 Plunket Shield Fizz: The Blackcaps (Ross Taylor, Finn Allen, Jacob Duffy) (Cricket)
Building 2021 Plunket Shield Fizz: Notable Youngins (Will O'Donnell, Luke Georgeson, Fraser Sheat) (Cricket)
Matua Strike-Rate: Jimmy Neesham's T20 World Cup Upside (Cricket)
Lockie Ferguson vs Kyle Jamieson: The Battle of Perception (Cricket)
The T20 World Cup Quest For Batting Leadership With Martin Guptill and Kane Williamson (Cricket)
Aotearoa's Gots Them T20I Spinners: Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi (Cricket)
The Tim Southee & Trent Boult T20 World Cup Impact (Cricket)
Flying Kiwis – October 19 (Football)
Here’s That (Very Young) Football Ferns Squad For The Canada Friendlies (Football)
Will This Be The Season That The Breakers Actually Live Up To The Hype? (Basketball)
More Treasures From Another Lockdown Of Movie Watching (Loungin’)
Scotty’s Word
Lots of Blackcaps reading up there ^^^^…
We have attacked this T20 World Cup campaign from all angles. Bits and pieces have found their way into recent podcasts, the bulk of the mahi has been done in writing about specific topics. All of which is in the reading menu above. Having been so far deep in the mangroves about Blackcaps T20 antics, there are some key themes present. First is the lack of T20I cricket overseas in recent years to accurately gauge what might happen. Then we have the wicket-keeper situation which has kinda funky ramifications in team balance; Tim Seifert hasn’t been great recently and Devon Conway can do a job as W-K.
Chuck in the fact that under Kane Williamson, this team is smart and well equipped for success throughout tournaments/events. T20 cricket is a game of wit and sharp cricket nous. The Blackcaps have displayed that in all formats while winning.
But first - Plunket Shield’s here!
Canterbury host Central Districts. Wellington Firebirds host Otago Volts.
Lots of Blackcaps should be playing and even though Northern Districts Knights and Auckland Aces won’t be playing, there is plenty of funk in these two games scheduled. Plunket Shield writing can be found here and we have finished the last two Niche Cast episodes with Plunket Shield chat. Here are some quick notes on each team…
Canterbury: Tremendous group of seamers. Dominant last summer. Any chance to see Henry Nicholls and Tom Latham batting should be savioured.
Central Districts: Typically full of talent. Good Doug Bracewell form could be useful as a plug-and-play Blackcaps option. Will Will Young double down as the next Test batsman?
Wellington: Premier young talent (Finn Allen, Rachin Ravindra, Luke Georgeson, Ben Sears).
Otago: New coach Dion Ebrahim and a new cycle for Otago cricket. Been a tough few years, now building back up.
Dan Hooker update…
Lydia Ko returns…
Wildcard’s Notebook
Steve-o Starts His New Job...
Preseason generally tells you next to nothing about a team, it tends to be more about just getting back into the swing of things for individuals. Getting match practice. Building up fitness. Logging them reps. But when you’re coming in fresh as a new player on an established team, that’s a rare exception.
Such was the case for Steven Adams during the last two weeks of preseason games. This was our introduction to what we were gonna see from him as a Memphis Grizzly. And what we saw was an abundance of rebounding (at both ends, though especially his dominant offensive boarding), plenty of crunching screen work (especially in the pick and roll with Ja Morant which looks like an instant classic), enough scoring touches to keep everyone happy (including some decent free throw numbers), and most enticing of all we saw some genuine playmaking flexes as Adams was given licence to fling the ball around with runners cutting off him.
In his 95 minutes of preseason action, spread out over four games (the Grizzlies rested all their starters for two of their six friendlies), Steven Adams literally led the entire league in both total and offensive rebounds. Again, preseason ultimately means nothing and he’s not about to do the same come the regular season but a good sign nonetheless.
That regular season began on Thursday with the Grizzlies winning at home against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Ja Morant was supreme with 37 points including a couple highlight reel plays that defied belief with how much air he was able to get – a block and an alley-oop dunk. The Grizz worked a very tidy lead in the first half thanks in large part to their bench unit though the Cavs did come back in the second half to make a game of it. But Memphis pulled away again in the fourth quarter. Desmond Bane also scored 22 points, the second year wing already an insane three-point shooter, while DeAnthony Melton added 20 more with a lot of that coming with that second unit. It was Memphis’ first season-opener win since 2017 and everything they showed backs up the positivity and optimism around this team from those who follow them closely.
As for Steven Adams... it was more of the same from those preseason performances. We saw a high-density rebounder with some heavy screen work and enough of that silky passing to come away with a big smile. He looks so much more active and involved than he was with the Pelicans. Here he’s got a clear role which suits his skill set and the team around him are all bought into that wider scheme. If we can get something close to a full season of performances like this then, mate, it’s gonna be a tasty treat. Would not be shocked whatsoever to see a career high in rebounds and I fully expect a career high in assists (and he’s made a big jump in assists the last two seasons already).
Also gonna chuck this one out there: I reckon we’re more likely to see a second career triple-double from the lad than we are to see a second career three-pointer.
Welly Nix Things...
Look at this, aye? Kurtis Mogg and George Ott have been signed to one-year scholarship contracts which means they’ll be on the plane in a week or two when the Wellington Phoenix Men head over to Australia in advance of the new season. Ufuk Talay had said there’d be academy dudes who make that trip and here we are. Scholarship deals being scholarship deals, they won’t count against the roster either – which stands at 19 players after the addition of Luka Prso the other day. Still at least one more signing to follow... plus hopefully a couple imports come January.
Mogg is a central defender who can cover the fullback spots at a stretch. He captained the reserves last year (in fact the last two years, I think), someone with clear leadership abilities, and he’s a big lad too so that’ll help with adapting to the infamous physicality of the A-League. Picture an old fashioned defender. Someone who’ll win his headers, who won’t back out of a challenge, who’ll stay disciplined in his positioning. That academy team does try play out from the back a bit so his technique is better than you’d think too. With Alex Paulsen and Ben Old already elevated to full roster spots, Mogg was the clear next man up.
Ott, meanwhile, is a target man striker who only joined the WeeNix last year after coming up at Hamilton Wanderers. He’s tall and has an eye for goal – cue the obvious Chris Wood connections. If you watched him play in the Premiership last season he was definitely raw, Ott would bounce in and out of the starting team and his touch was not always as reliable as you’d hope. Thing is, that’s normal for this sorta player. Chris Wood was a late bloomer himself in many ways (his breakthrough season for Leeds came aged 25). And a quick peek at the stats from the last Central League shows that Ott scored 20 goals in 18 appearances for Lower Hutt City. Newly reassigned academy director Paul Temple specifically mentions the growth in Ott’s game over the last year in the press release. Haven’t personally seen him play in this time but that’s a super exciting prospect. “Exceptional goalscorer” were a couple words that Temple used.
So we’ve got 21 players in the travelling squad now confirmed (including those who are already over there: Piscopo, Pennington, Bozinovski & Prso). 11 of those players have come up through the club’s academy in some capacity: Alex Rufer, Ben Waine, Louis Fenton, Oli Sail, Sam Sutton, Callan Elliot, James McGarry, Ben Old, Alex Paulsen, Kurtis Mogg & George Ott.
GK – Oli Sail, Alex Paulsen
DEF – Tim Payne, Josh Laws, Matthew Bozinovski, James McGarry, Callan Elliot, Louis Fenton, Kurtis Mogg
MID – Alex Rufer, Clayton Lewis, Luka Prso, Nicholas Pennington, Sam Sutton
FWD – David Ball, Gary Hooper, Reno Piscopo, Ben Waine, Jaushua Sotirio, Ben Old, George Ott
Then also surely you noticed the madness that was three different player announcements for the Women’s team on Tuesday. First they revealed Chloe Knott and Grace Jale. Then a few hours later there was a five-pronged unveiling for Mackenzie Barry, Kelli Brown, Ava Pritchard, Saskia Vosper, and Grace Wisnewski. And then a few hours after that came the signings of Kate Taylor and Zoe McMeeken. To go with the earlier inaugural signing of goalkeeper Lily Alfeld.
McMeeken is the only one of the ten (so far) who I haven’t seen play much. Alfeld is a shot stopping goalie with fingertips of steel. Knott is a box to box midfielder with a work ethic that’ll make you sweat just watching the telly from your sofa at home. Jale is more of an attacking midfielder, someone who has played as a forward at times, she’s tall with good technique. Barry is a young centre back who played really well in a partnership with Claudia Bunge last year for Northern Lights (Bunge who is a reigning A-League W champion with Melbourne Victory). Brown is a striker/attacking mid with a knack for scoring magnificent goals. Pritchard is a winger with a bit of skill and speed. Vosper an energetic fullback. Wisnewski another forward and someone who has played heaps in combination with Brown coming up through the ranks in the Waikato. Taylor a solid central defender who really impressed for Canterbury last Premiership season – and someone who I didn’t realise was as young as she is (only 17yo), which is always a good sign. McMeeken I haven’t seen, as I say, but she’s an athletic fullback who is also a junior javelin champion.
T20 Cricket Yarns...
Finally, just wanted to spend a little more time on some stats that I compiled for a Blackcaps piece yesterday. These are looking at the top international teams performances in T20I over the three years leading up to the current T20 World Cup:
A couple of things stand out there for the Blackcaps. Starting with a boundary rate (percentage of balls that are hit for fours or sixes) of 17.19% which is second best in the world over that time. England obviously are number one in all the batting aggression stats because that’s how they’ve specifically fashioned their team to perform. Interesting though that the West Indies are only a fraction behind the Blackcaps in boundary rate yet their strike-rate (overall runs per 100 deliveries) is nearly three runs lower. Tells you that the Cappies are scoring more from singles and twos than the Windies, who have a lower SR than South Africa despite a better boundary rate.
All those batting stats have to take into context the bowling flipside and England’s insane scoring rates with the bat do mean that teams are more aggressive in return hence the worst bowling RPO of the major nations (to determine major nations I just took the ones who played the most. Should’ve probably had Afghanistan there too as a Test team but stats mean less the smaller the sample size). But England do have a killer strike rate with the ball – a wicket every 18.5 deliveries.
Curious that the Blackcaps bowling RPO is one of the worse ones here... suspect that’s a lot to do with playing about three quarters of their games over this time span at home with short boundaries and a lot of drop-in pitches. Pakistan for example, many of whose games were played in the UAE where the World Cup is being held, have one of the lowest strike-rates but also one of the lowest run-rates. What does that tell ya? Lower scores, pretty much. Keep that in mind as the tournament hits its group stage proper over the next couple days.
By the way, the one kiwi to have bowled an international T20 maiden over in the last three years? Mitchell Santner. It was in a game away in Sri Lanka where he took 4/12 from his four overs. Mark Gillespie has the NZ record with 3 T20I maidens. Shane Bond, Mitchell McCleneghan, and Tim Southee all have two. T20I maidens are like catching a rare Pokemon in the wild. Fishing for Dratini in the Safari Park, man. Jasprit Bumrah has the overall record with seven of them.