When the penultimate round of 2015/16 first-class cricket action commences this Wednesday in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, three teams — the Mondiale Auckland Aces, Wellington Firebirds and Canterbury — will embark on a final push for Plunket Shield glory.
Points table
Unbeaten frontrunners the Aces are in the strongest position. However, their mission is not yet complete, and they will have one eye on a weather forecast which may throw a curve ball into this crunch round.
The Aucklanders are coming off their sixth outright win of the season, while the Wellington Firebirds are fresh off their fifth heading into the pivotal top of the table clash at the Basin Reserve — where an outright win for the Aces will be enough to secure the prestigious title with a round to spare.
Firebirds captain Michael Papps. Photosport
Needing other results to fall their way, Canterbury meanwhile hosts the SKYCITY Northern Knights, who are also coming off an impressive win in the last round.
Star turn: Ajaz Patel. NZC
While the Devon Hotel Central Stags are now playing for pride, that match at Seddon Park saw Stags off-spinner Ajaz Patel overtake injured Knight Scott Kuggeleijn as the season's leading wicket-taker, Patel increasing his haul from 31 to 35 victims.
Hot shot: the Aces' young Robbie O'Donnell. NZC
Only one of the Aces' bowling attack, legspinner Tarun Nethula (26), currently makes that bowling top 10, while two Auckland batsmen (21-year-old Robbie O'Donnell with 645 runs and Michael Guptill-Bunce with 607) are amongst the top 10 batting aggregrates with 80 per cent of the Shield season completed.
The Knights' 25-year-old Bharat Popli meanwhile maintains his place as the season's leading run-getter, and now requires just 58 runs from a maximum possible four innings to score 1000 runs in a first-class season.
Popli has scored his 942 runs at 67.28, and is 256 runs ahead of the next most prolific batsman, Devon Hotel Central Stags opener Ben Smith (686 from seven matches at 62.36).
Canterbury captain Peter Fulton requires a further 95 runs to achieve the significant milestone of 10,000 first-class runs in his career.
The Volts have brought in two notable injury replacements in this round in 2015/16 NZ under-19s captain Josh Finnie and his well performed ICC Under-19 World Cup teammate Nathan Smith, who is in his last year at Waitaki Boys' High School: the latter will be on Volts debut, if selected.
Plunket Shield, brought to you by Budget Rental
ROUND NINE
10.30am from Wednesday 23 March 2016 (FREE ENTRY four-day matches)
• Canterbury v SKYCITY Northern Knights at Hagley Oval, Christchurch
• SBS Bank Otago Volts v Devon Hotel Central Stags at University Oval, Dunedin
• Mondiale Auckland Aces v Wellington Firebirds, Basin Reserve, Wellington
SBS Bank Otago Volts (two changes, Josh Finnie for Mark Craig (broken hand) and Nathan Smith for Jack Hunter (injured): Michael Bracewell, Derek de Boorder, (w), Jacob Duffy, Ryan Duffy, Anaru Kitchen, James Neesham, Craig Smith, Blair Soper, Christi Viljoen, Brad Wilson (captain)
Devon Hotel Central Stags (three changes, Navin Patel, Kurt Richards and Ryan Watson comes in for Bevan Small (injured), Blair Tickner and Dean Robinson. If selected, Taranaki seamer Ryan Watson will be on debut): Will Young (captain), Doug Bracewell, Tom Bruce, Dane Cleaver (w), Liam Dudding, Greg Hay, Ajaz Patel, Navin Patel, Mitch Renwick, Kurt Richards, Ben Smith, Ryan Watson
Wellington Firebirds (unchanged):
Michael Papps (captain), Brent Arnel, Matt Bacon, Tom Blundell (w), Scott Borthwick, Fraser Colson, Iain McPeake, Stephen Murdoch, Jeetan Patel, Michael Pollard, Anurag Verma, Luke Woodcock
Mondiale Auckland Aces (one change, Mark Chapman returns from representing Hong Kong at the ICC World T20 in India and replaces Brett Randell): Michael Bates (captain), Brad Cachopa, Mark Chapman, Colin de Grandhomme, Lockie Ferguson, Donovan Grobbelaar, Michael Guptill-Bunce, Shawn Hicks, Tarun Nethula, Robbie O'Donnell, Matt Quinn, Jeet Raval
Canterbury (one change, Logan van Beek returns for Kyle Jamieson): Peter Fulton (captain), Todd Astle, Hamish Bennett, Chad Bowes, Leo Carter, Michael Davidson, Andrew Ellis, Cameron Fletcher (w), Matt Henry, Tim Johnston, Ken McClure
SKYCITY Northern Knights (unchanged): Daniel Flynn (captain), James Baker, Dean Brownlie, Anton Devcich, Zak Gibson, Tony Goodin, Brett Hampton, Daryl Mitchell, Bharat Popli, Tim Seifert, Joe Walker, BJ Watling
All #PlunketShield matches are livescored at www.blackcaps.co.nz
