The Faint Of Spirit

All Whites debutants & Kiwis in the IPL

The Niche Cache

Oct 11, 2021

Support Us On Patreon

Podcast

TNC Variety Show - Episode 36

Apple | Spotify | TNC | YouTube

Reading Menu

Scotty’s Word

Kiwis in IPL…

As per my note in today’s Variety Show Podcast, I’ve whipped up a list of games played by kiwis in the Indian Premier League. In brackets are previous seasons in which these lads played 10+ games and that’s my marker for a busy IPL campaign…

Kane Williamson - 10 (2020 - 12, 2018 - 17).

Trent Boult - 14 (2020 - 15, 2018 - 14).

Kyle Jamieson - 9.

Lockie Ferguson - 5.

Adam Milne - 4.

Tim Southee - 3 (2016 - 11).

Glenn Phillips - 3.

Jimmy Neesham - 3.

Tim Seifert - 1.

Mitchell Santner - 0.

Williamson and Boult are the only blokes with consecutive 10-game campaigns in this group. Brendan McCullum played at least 10 games for four consecutive years between 2014-17 and Mitchell McClenaghan did that between 2015-18. I consider this reinforcement to caution around what an IPL gig actually means and while there is immense benefit in being around IPL/great players, most kiwis don’t actually play a whole lot.

This can be twisted to suit Kyle Jamieson’s predicament. Jamieson has played nine games so far but hasn’t played the last four games for Bangalore and that may be due to Jamieson taking 1w in his last seven T20 games (five in T20 Blast, two in IPL second stanza. Jamieson was right up with Boult for the best kiwis after the first stanza but since returning from England, Jamieson played two games with no wickets and 13rpo/11rpo.

I was initially weary of Jamieson’s IPL gig and that was quickly brushed aside as Jamieson took 9w in seven games. Now Jamieson’s tied for the fourth highest IPL contract and not playing in Bangalore’s 1st 11. Bangalore play a knockout game tomorrow morning and I’m obviously eager to see if Jamieson plays or not.

Boult is ranked 17th for bowlers with 13w @ 31.23avg/7.90rpo/23.6sr.

Boult has played seven games in the second stanza with 5w. Boult is the third best Mumbai bowler and 23.69sr is his worst bowling strike-rate since 2017.

Williamson is ranked 21st for runs with 266 runs @ 44.33avg/113.19sr.

Williamson has played six games in the second stanza with three 20+ scores including a 51*. Williamson has a similar record to David Warner (195 runs @ 107.73sr) but Williamson has four not-outs to bumps his average up while Warner had no not-outs and averaged 24.37. That’s two of the best multi-format batsmen in the world both enduring an IPL in which they had batting strike-rates below 115.

Blackcaps T20 World Cup stuff is super funky. I wrote about Jimmy Neesham’s role and there is no shortage of interesting pockets. Williamson and Boult are intriguing as they are the only current Blackcaps with legit IPL mana - here are some T20I stats to take this funk further…

Williamson has played 13 T20I games over the last three years (more IPL games this year lol). Against Australia earlier this year; 5inns - 82 runs @ 16.40avg/122.38r. That forms the least productive T20I year of Williamson’s career and right now I’m pondering that 122.38sr mixed in with his IPL strike-rate of 113.19. Blackcaps will need Williamson operating up around 135ish in a role where Williamson cruises while hitters get tonking around him.

Boult has played nine T20I games in the last three years. Against Australia earlier this year; 19ov - 7w @ 20.57avg/7.57rpo/16.2sr. Boult was Aotearoa’s best seamer vs Australia, second best kiwi bowler behind Ish Sodhi. Boult hasn’t played a T20I in UAE, but he’s got plenty of IPL/UAE experience and his five games played in ‘Asia’ have resulted in 5w @ 14.10avg/7.83rpo/10.5sr - much better than Boult’s mahi in Aotearoa.

Two key Blackcaps who have the most IPL experience in this T20 World Cup squad. Neither has been dominant in the IPL though and their journey through this World Cup will be a low key thing to track. Williamson is likely to bat #3 behind Devon Conway and Martin Guptill with some funk around Tim Seifert’s role, while Boult will be a go-to seamer to take wickets and/or slow opponents down.

Wildcard’s Notebook

All Whites Debutants

The Niche Cache @thenichecache

Tres debutantes #AllWhites

Marko Stamenic, Matthew Garbett, Niko Kirwan.

All three of them walked out from the start for the All Whites to make their senior international debuts on the weekend vs Curaçao, while Kelvin Kalua also came on off the bench to earn his first cap. Neither Kirwan nor Kalua had played youth grade internationals before so it was arguably extra special there for them... plus Kirwan now joins in quite the family legacy: Sister Francesca has won three national beach volleyball titles in the last five years and has represented Aotearoa. Brother Luca competed for Aotearoa at the world U23 rowing championships a couple years ago. And apparently their dad was decent at rugby or something. Word is that the whole family get up in the middle of the night to watch Niko’s footy games live from the other side of the world in Italy.

That quartet makes it an sneaky eleven players who have been capped for the first time under Danny Hay in only three matches. Lots of fresh blood. That alone is kinda nuts, although it’s partly explained by the fact that they’ve played so rarely. If those eleven debuts were spread out over 15 games then it wouldn’t be such a big deal.

Except it’s not just eleven players because this is continuing a trend that we saw under Fritz Schmid too. The previous gaffer’s numbers were boosted by taking charge of a friendly tournament in India where he didn’t have access to a lot of NZ’s best players. But, regardless, in his four games Schmiddy capped ten new players.

All Whites Debuts Under Fritz Schmid:

Canada – Max Crocombe, Adam Mitchell, Andre De Jong, Sarpreet Singh
Kenya – Nikko Boxall, Justin Gulley, Noah Billingsley
Chinese Taipei – Nik Tzanev, Liberato Cacace
India – Michael Woud

All Whites Debuts Under Danny Hay:

Ireland - Joe Bell, Eli Just, Callum McCowatt, Elliot Collier
Lithuania - James McGarry, Max Mata, Nando Pijnaker
Curaçao - Niko Kirwan, Marko Stamenic, Matt Garbett, Kelvin Kalua

21 debutants in the space of seven games. Bonkers numbers. That does add up to three and a half years of football, to be fair, although in the same space of time the English men’s team has played exactly 50 times yet have only capped 11 new players in that time. One of which was Ben Chilwell who was eligible to play for the All Whites thanks to his father (BC has a tattoo of the map of Aotearoa on his left arm – though you never see it coz he’s one of those long sleeve jokers). 21 debuts in seven games versus 11 debuts in 50 games, lol.

Anthony Hudson only gave 25 debuts in 27 games overall. Big ratio difference. However you may recall there was a period early on in Huddo’s tenure when he was trying to artificiality boost the player pool and was handing out debuts left right and centre... coincidentally his first seven games also saw 21 debuts. Then only four more in his remaining 20 matches.

All Whites Debuts Under Anthony Hudson:

(Player | Debut | Total Caps as of Oct 2021)

Tom Doyle | Uzbekistan, Sep 2014 | 11
Joel Stevens | Uzbekistan, Sep 2014 | 3
Deklan Wynne | China, Nov 2014 | 15
Kayne Vincent | Thailand, Nov 2014 | 1
Stefan Marinovic | South Korea, Mar 2015 | 26
Themi Tzimopoulos | South Korea, Mar 2015 | 14
Clayton Lewis | South Korea, Mar 2015 | 15
Ryan De Vries | South Korea, Mar 2015 | 1
Moses Dyer | South Korea, Mar 2015 | 11
Benjamin van den Broek | South Korea, Mar 2015 | 1
Alex Rufer | Myanmar, Sep 2015 | 7
Harshae Raniga | Myanmar, Sep 2015 | 1
Liam Higgins | Myanmar, Sep 2015 | 1
Sam Brotherton | Oman, Nov 2015 | 11
Henry Cameron | Oman, Nov 2015 | 5
Logan Rogerson | Oman, Nov 2015 | 3
Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi | Oman, Nov 2015 | 8
Kip Colvey | Fiji, May 2016 | 15
Luke Adams | Fiji, May 2016 | 5
Monty Patterson | Fiji, May 2016 | 15
Luka Prelevic | Fiji, May 2016 | 3
Liam Graham | Mexico, Oct 2016 | 4
Dane Ingham | Fiji, Mar 2017 | 6
Jai Ingham | Fiji, Mar 2017 | 4
Myer Bevan | Solomon Islands, Sep 2017 | 6

So that’s five one-cap wonders. Another six who have five or fewer caps. Only nine out of 25 who have gone on to play ten or more internationals. And while many of them are still young enough to work their way back in there if things break right for them... not a lot of the guys who debuted under Huddo who have done much in the seven games since he parted ways with the team.

Of players that debuted under Huddo, only Stefan Marinovic in the current squad in Bahrain. Ten of the 25 featured in Fritz Schmid’s weakened teams but only Alex Rufer and Stefan Marinovic have played under Danny Hay so far. Maybe chuck in Dane Ingham and Clayton Lewis too because they featured prominently at the Olympics and they, along with Rufer, were unavailable for the most recent group as A-League players limited by travel quarantines.

Here’s another way to look at it. This was the team that started the away leg against Peru in November 2017, the final game of Anthony Hudson’s tenure and the culminating match of all he’d been building towards:

Marinovic | Colvey, Durante, Reid, Boxall, Wynne | McGlinchey, Tuiloma, Lewis | Thomas, Barbarouses

Now compared that to the full strength XI that Danny Hay named for his very first game, against Ireland in November 2019:

Marinovic | Roux, Reid, Boxall, Cacace | Bell, Thomas, Singh | Just, McCowatt, Wood

That was nearly two years ago and all of those players are in different career situations now. Mostly for the better. That team felt quite raw at the time but the instincts were spot on because with the advances that the young guys in there have made since… who would you change in a full-strength team were there a do-or-die World Cup qualifier tomorrow? Maybe swap in the right back of your chosen preference and that’s just about it. Bell, Just, and McCowatt were all on debut that day.

Tell me, go on, explain to me the case as to why Danny Hay’s All Whites wouldn’t pump Anthony Hudson’s All Whites. Because you cannot do it. It’s not Huddo’s fault that Joe Bell and Libby Cacace were too young for him to select and it’s not like Danny Hay is responsible for discovering them. But it’s quite a contrast.

Preseason Steve

He didn’t play the third game, nothing in it just that the Grizzlies rested all their vets and starters. But those first two preseason games were superb from Steven Adams. Serving up all the goodness and some of that passing has been so exciting to see. Went into it a little last time. Anyway, here are some highlights.

Midnight Mass

Finished watching this bad boy over the weekend. The latest offering from the main man horror auteur Mike Flanagan. A small island township falls is wooed by a charismatic priest with a secret, allowing the show to tackle the big issues of religion and death. Don’t really wanna say anything more for fear of spoilers so suffice to say that if Flanagan’s name is on it then it’s worth watching. Unless you’re one of the faint of heart, in which case give it a wide berth. Faint of spirit better steer clear too.

This one is clearly a very personal creation for Flanagan. In many ways it’s a culmination of his humanist horror tendencies and some of his major recurring themes (addiction, redemption, the supernatural). Lots of Stephen King influence too – I love how King’s now graduated from a pulpy genre writer to the level of genuine Esteemed Man Of Letters where he deserves to be.

I kinda want to write about Flanagan’s body of work at some point (maybe if Northland’s level three status gets extended I’ll have the time) because there’s nobody working in the horror genre right now doing quite what he’s doing. This is the bloke who did The Haunting Of Hill House and The Haunting Of Bly Manor shows on Netflix. Those jokers are also streaming his films Hush and Gerald’s Game (the latter a King adaptation) which are both superb. Doctor Sleep (another King adaptation) is a bit overlong but with plenty of golden moments. And it’s just been announced that he’s doing an Edgar Allen Poe adaptation next, cannot wait.

El Niche Cache

Discussion about this post