STATISTICS: A summary of the statistics and milestones following the second round of Ford Trophy cricket.
Darryl Mitchell made his List A debut for the Northern Knights while Craig Cachopa and Barry Rhodes debuted for the Wellington Firebirds. Mitchell, the son of former All Black coach John Mitchell, has been living in Perth for a number of years and represented Western Australia Under-23s and the Australia Centre of Excellence in the Futures League last season. South African-born Rhodes has been a prolific scorer in Wellington club cricket while Cachopa is the third of three brothers to have played in this season's Ford Trophy with Brad (Auckland Aces) and Carl (Central Stags) turning out in the first round. Only the Bracewells - Brendan, Doug, John and Mark - have provided more brothers playing in New Zealand List A cricket.
Jimmy Neesham, in just his thrid List A match, played a significant part in the Otago Volts victory by top scoring with 55 and following that up by taking 5-44. He is only the 5th player to have scored a half-century and taken 5 wickets in the same match in New Zealand List A cricket. The first to do so was Steve Brown for the Aces against the Knights in 1991-92 (63 & 5-23) followed by two Wizards players, Chris Cairns (69 & 5-23) against the Stags in 1995-96 and Craig McMillan (74* & 5-38) against the Knights in 1996-97. The most recent to perform the feat is Kane Williamson who struck 69 and took 5-51 for the Knights against the Aces in 2009-10.
This is only the ninth occasion that an Otago Volts bowler has claimed 5 wickets in a match with Ian Butler having done so twice. Two of Neesham's other team-mates on the day, Neil Wagner and Nathan McCullum, have also achieved the feat.
Andy McKay achieved his best List A bowling figures when finishing with 4-34 for the Wellington Firebirds against the Otago Volts. His previous best was 4-41 for the Auckland Aces against the Firebirds.
Jason Donnelly claimed a career best 3-45 while Brent Arnel claimed his second 4 wicket bag for the Knights during the the match against the Wizards. Arnel moved to 10th on the Knights all-time wicket-takers list and took his career tally for them to 52.
Rob Nicol became the 16th player to reach 1,000 runs for the Canterbury Wizards in just his 19th innings for them. The previous fastest to this mark for the Wizards was Michael Papps in 30 innings.
The match between Auckland Aces and Central Stags scheduled for Colin Maiden Park in Auckland is the 37th match to be abandoned without any play in New Zealand since domestic one day competitions started in the 1971-72 season. Auckland has been the venue on 9 of these occasions followed by Christchurch with 7, New Plymouth 5, Wellington 4, Nelson 3, Hamilton, Wanganui and Whangarei (each 2) and Napier, Hastings and Taupo (once each). It must be pointed out that not one Otago venue features on this list. When looked at as a percentage of games scheduled Hastings comes out worst having a 50% record with one of the two matches scheduled there abandoned. Nelson comes next with 3 out of 14 (21.4%) matches abandoned followed by Wanganui 2/10 (20%) and New Plymouth 5/46 (10.9%).
If we extend the enquiry to include all the matches that have been either abandoned or no results then Auckland still tops the list with 12 matches followed by Christchurch and New Plymouth (10) and Wellington (9). Dunedin this time features with 3 no result matches. Wanganui is most likely to be weather affected with 30% of matches either no result or abandoned followed by Nelson (28.6%) and New Plymouth (21.7%).
When the Canterbury Wizards passed 250 against the Northern Knights this was the 65th time they have achieved this total in domestic competition. They are well ahead of the pack with the Northern Knights next having performed the feat 48 times, followed by Auckland 47, Wellington 40 and Central Districts and Otago 39. This is the 15th occasion they have done so against the Knights which is the most by one association against another. The Wizards are also
next on this list having achieved it 14 times against the Central Stags. Wellington have scored 250 or better on only 4 occasions against the Wizards to trail in last place on this score.
