The Woodsman Doesn't Miss
Tim Southee & Tim Seifert T20 notes, Matt Garbett joins Torino, and Chris Wood's penalty taking prowess
Podcast
Sons Of Sarpy (Flying Kiwis Football)
Kiwi NRL Podcast: Round 24 Preview
Reading Menu
How Jared Warea-Hargreaves and Jesse Bromwich Keep On Leading The Best NRL Teams (NRL)
Aotearoa Warriors Diary: Tapping Into Junior Ratuva's Development (NRL)
Flying Kiwis – August 24 (Football)
Roster Tweaking & Other Offseason Occurrences with the NZ Breakers (Basketball)
Further Thoughts About Steven Adams’ Fit With The Memphis Grizzlies (Basketball)
Tom Walsh and the Elite Four of Men’s Shot Put (Athletics)
Growing Sprouts In The Northern Districts Knights Garden (Cricket)
A Deep Dive Into Aotearoa White Ferns Talent Identification (Cricket)
Scotty’s Word
Lots of cricket…
White Ferns are in England, Blackcaps are in Bangladesh and we have a T20 extravaganza to enjoy. The Caribbean Premier League snuck up on me to start overnight with Colin Munro and Tim Seifert lining up for Trinbago in their loss to Guyana, while I’m writing this while watching Glenn Phillips in the field for Barbados against St Kitts and Nevis. These three seem to be the only kiwis involved in the CPL, with Munro and Phillips moving straight from England’s T20 Blast/Hundred to CPL.
Phillips will then head to the IPL after he was picked up by Rajasthan as a replacement player - the second stanza of IPL 2021 has been plagued by players pulling out. Same applies for Tim Southee who joins Kolkata who already have Seifert and Lockie Ferguson in their roster.
Southee didn’t play IPL last year after six consecutive campaigns. What’s most interesting here is that Southee’s IPL record is in hefty contrast with his resurgent form for Aotearoa in T20I cricket which is largely due to Southee and the Blackcaps playing lots of cricket in home conditions. The T20 World Cup and second stanza of IPL will both be played in UAE, which frames much of the Kiwi-IPL funk as we’ll see these lads in the same conditions/grounds etc.
Here are some Southee T20 bowling stats..
IPL: 46.17avg/8.73rpo/31.71sr.
T20I: 25.17avg/8.39rpo/18sr.
2020 T20I: 25.33avg/8.81rpo/17.2sr.
2021 T20I: 19.50avg/8.06rpo/14.5sr.
In three games of 2019 IPL cricket, Southee took 1w @ 118avg/13.11rpo. Southee has not averaged below 30 in any of his seven IPL seasons, nor has his bowling strike-rate dipped below 20. Whether Southee can take his T20 form from Aotearoa to the UAE will be low key funky to keep tabs.
I’m also tracking Seifert’s strike-rates at the moment. Seifert was the only player in the Blackcaps T20 World Cup squad with the (wk) note, which could mean that he’s locked in as the 1st 11 wicket-keeper. Other options are Devon Conway and Glenn Phillips who have both played as keepers in T20I cricket - both are also better batsmen than Seifert right now.
Seifert hit 24 @ 79.31sr in the first CPL game, with Trinbago falling 10 runs short of their target. For context, Seifert’s T20I strike-rate is 133.14 and T20 strike-rate is 129.55 which are both hovering around 130. Everything we know about the T20 version of Seifert stems from that 130sr as we’ve seen him crack boundaries all around the park and this was on full display last year right up until the T20I series vs Pakistan that finished on December 22nd.
Seifert’s 2020 in T20I was genuinely bonkers: 10inns - 352 runs @50.28avg/140.23sr.
The weird thing though is that my ‘Seifert strike-rate antenna’ was perked mid-2020 in the CPL, then reinforced in the Super Smash over the summer. Both are T20 tournaments which in theory are a level below T20I cricket yet Seifert’s domination of T20I cricket didn’t translate to the level below.
2020 CPL: 109.91sr.
2020 Super Smash: 115.63sr.
2021 T20Is: 62.79sr.
First 2021 CPL game: 79.31sr.
Seifert was well down on his 130sr benchmark in the CPL and Super Smash, despite being on fire in the T20I games to end 2020. Seifert then struggled against Australia (6.75avg across 4inns) which forms that 2021 T20I bracket and one game into the 2021 CPL nothing seems to have changed.
After that T20I series vs Australia, Seifert played two Plunket Shield games with scores of 9, 14 and 19. Seifert’s last 10 games of cricket feature no scores over 30 (eight T20s, two Plunket Shield). Now we have this CPL to again gauge where Seifert’s at and the CPL will be crucial as Seifert is unlikely to play in the IPL given that he didn’t play a game for Kolkata in the first IPL stanza - even though the homie Brendon McCullum is coach.
The weird thing is that if Seifert continues to struggle he will probably still lace up for the Blackcaps in the World Cup as Blackcaps selectors don’t pay much attention to T20 leagues around the world (Colin Munro, Finn Allen and Adam Milne would be certain selections otherwise). Then if Seifert does dip out of the 1st 11, it won’t be terrible as Conway will likely take over that wicket-keeper role.
Even weirder is trying to fit Seifert into a Blackcaps T20 World Cup 1st 11 regardless of form. Martin Guptill, Devon Conway, Kane Williamson, Glenn Phillips and Jimmy Neesham are likely to all be in a 1st 11 (Guptill is likely to benefit from his Blackcaps mana, despite a terrible 2021 Pakistan Super League and dubious Asia/Middle East record). Daryl Mitchell, Mark Chapman, Kyle Jamieson and Mitchell Santner will compete for a few all-rounder roles. That’s nine blokes in the mix for six-seven spots, without even considering Seifert.
All of which makes for a fascinating couple of months in the CPL and IPL. Blackcaps and White Ferns start next week, so we’ve got plenty of cricket to enjoy during this lockdown.
CPL
Trinbago: Colin Munro, Tim Seifert.
Barbados: Glenn Phillips.
IPL
Chennai: Mitchell Santner.
Kolkata: Lockie Ferguson, Tim Seifert, Tim Southee.
Mumbai: Trent Boult, Adam Milne, Jimmy Neesham.
Rajasthan: Glenn Phillips.
Bangalore: Kyle Jamieson.
Hyderabad: Kane Williamson.
Wildcard’s Notebook
Matt Garbett -> Torino
Matty Garbett left the Olympics after a couple unexpected starts – having only initially been named as a travelling reserve – amidst a flurry of transfer rumours. Read a bit more about that here, he’s a guy with a very active agency behind him so it’s always been a grain of salt thing (not that long ago it was Manchester City he was being linked with).
But, while you can understand a dude being eased back in after a big tournament experience like that, five club games since the last OlyWhites fixture we were still yet to see Matthew Garbett even included in a matchday squad for Falkenbergs. It was beginning to get rather suspicious. Then these yarns began emerging out of Italy...
Talk of “interest” from clubs like Brentford, Watford, and Crystal Palace are rumours. Talk of a bid being accepted, of MG having already done a medical, of a 15% sell-on fee and a contract until 2025... those aren’t rumours those are cold hard facts. Well, the length of the contract has been reportedly differently elsewhere, seems more likely a 2+1 deal with a club option. But the overall oil was good.
Thus one day later...
All sorted. There were thanks and good wishes from Falkenbergs and now the 19 year old has gotta stop those Duolingo Swedish lessons and get cracking on the Italian ones. Say what you will about some of the manufactured rumours but they’ve worked a treat. One of the more exciting prospects in the kiwi game at the moment and one of the more exciting transfers we’ve had in a wee while (and there’s been no shortage of competition there this month either). There’s even a fan comp!
And in fairness, you can see why he/his agent were keen to get away from Falkenbergs. They did have a nice win last weekend but were still bottom of the Superettan table directly after getting relegated in last place from the Allsvenskan. Considering that Joel Stevens and Francis De Vries are getting regular games for a Värnamo team that just got promoted to the Superettan and are right up near the top of the ladder... that’s not a good sign for the trajectory of FFF. Garbett played 20 league games for the club, six of them starts. No goals but he did serve up an assist or two and he has scored in cup competition for them.
Of course it will most likely be a wee while before Garbs is in the picture to play Serie A – something that no New Zealand man has yet achieved. He’ll initially be joining the Primavera squad, the under-19s, whose season began about two days after he signed with a homer vs Roma.
The Torino first team meanwhile got under way with a 2-1 loss to Atalanta. They’re coming off a season in which they only narrowly avoided relegation and their preseason wasn’t too flash either. Then they needed penalties to get past a 10-man Cremonese team in the cup which led to them being booed off the field. Ivan Jurić is in as coach this season, picked up after a couple impressive seasons keeping Hellas Verona in the top flight despite a tiny budget to work with. Among their playing crew include old mate Simone Zaza, formerly a teammate of Winston Reid’s at West Ham, and Ricardo Rodriguez, briefly a teammate of Ryan Thomas at PSV. Andrea Belotti is their star man... supposing he stays. Inter Milan are trying to pry him away after selling Romelu Lukaku.
Chris Wood Does Not Miss
First man up as Burnley went to penalties against Newcastle in the second round of the EFL Cup. First man up and he typically buried his attempt after Allan Saint-Maximin had already missed for Newcastle. A Josh Brownhill miss with the Clarets’ fourth attempt seemingly let Newcastle back into it but then Miguel Almiron was denied by Wayne Hennessey and Charlie Taylor converted for the win. Sweet as. Went a little better than the last penalty shootout that Chris Wood was involved in where the NZ Olympic team went down to Japan in the quarterfinals of Tokyo 2020.
To be fair, Chris Wood scored his penalty in that shootout too. The only time the All Whites have gone to penalties during his career was the travesty of conservative football that was Anthony Hudson’s 2016 OFC Nations Cup campaign but Chris Wood didn’t play that final, leaving to attend his sister’s wedding after scoring the winner in the semi. And while there have been a couple other occasions of NZ youth teams needing penalty shootouts (U17s vs Tahiti in 2015, U17s vs Solomons in 2018, U20s vs Colombia in 2019), the Japan game at the Olympics is the only one that’s involved The Woodsman.
But this was the fourth time that Burnley have gone to a penalty shootout in his time there. One of his first games was a League Cup tie against Leeds less than a month after signing from them. He came off the bench and scored a penalty deep in stoppage time to force extra time, then scored in the subsequent shootout... which Burnley went on to lose 5-3. Three years later they needed spotties to get past Sheffield United in the same round of the same cup and Chris Wood went first... and scored. Same deal a few months later against MK Dons in the FA Cup, although Wood had been subbed off before the shootout came around on that day.
Before that he was at Leeds and was involved in three penalty shootouts. 2016 he scored in extra time and then again in the shootout in a League Cup win over Norwich City. A couple rounds earlier in the same competition they knocked out Fleetwood Town on spotties and again Chris Wood scored in both extras and the shootout. His extra time goal was a penalty too. However on 13 August 2015 he did miss in a penalty shootout loss to Doncaster Rovers in the League Cup. Sent it miles over the top, a terrible penalty (2:15 in this vid)…
That was six years ago. His first season at Leeds and the year before he went nek level with his career. Supposing this research hasn’t missed anything, and can’t think what might have been missed, Chris Wood has been involved in six penalty shootouts since and he’s scored in all of them. There’s always a chance of missing in those things. The best in the world are gonna be denied now and then. Sometimes the keeper dives the right way, sometimes you just don’t make the right contact for whatever reason. So six in a row is a pretty magnificent streak.
This is making me want to try and chase down as much video as possible and look at where he’s hitting his penalties and all that. I’ve seen plenty of variety in his spot kicks. Dude has options. It actually took longer than you’d think for him to score a Premier League penalty in fact it wasn’t until late in his third season that he even got to take one. Stoppage time against Wolves, after the covid restart. He scored it of course. Burnley have had this rule that the guy who wins it gets to take it so Ashley Barnes had taken a couple while Wood was on the pitch in that time. Also Burnley in general just don’t win very many of them - they literally won zero in his first PL season there, and only two the in the following term. But he got a couple more last season to be 3/3 in the PL from the spot overall.
It’s a bit hard to find in-game penalty stats from all his various games. The ones he’s scored are easy-ish but the misses can slide under the radar sometimes. Transfermarkt has a good list though. If we trust them jokers then the last time he missed a penalty was for Leeds in April 2016. By the same source, he has scored 16 penalties since then. 22 in a row if you include penalties from in shootouts. That’s the early data, suffice to say I shall be digging deeper into Chris Wood’s penalty taking in the coming days because 22 successful penalties, of all scenarios, in a row is pretty bloody outrageous.
RIP Charlie Watts
Fun musical trick: listen to a song you know well but focus specifically on one instrument. Like the drums on any Stones track for example. It’s a funky way to get an appreciation for the way that a great song is pieced together, for the synergy within a band, and for the individual excellence of specific members within that group. It’s wildest doing that for jazz songs where different instruments sometimes feel like they’re playing different songs to each other entirely (until they come back around on the beat). Charlie Watts was the coolest. He will be missed.