A quarter of the way into the first-class championship and already we’ve seen seven five-wicket bags, seven centuries, a catch of the summer - and a longstanding record fall in New Zealand, albeit an unwanted one!
FIVE-WICKET BAGGERS
Coming in hot after the excitement of opportunities for the BLACKCAPS and New Zealand A during winter, Jacob Duffy has been one of the key men behind the Otago Volts' electrifying start.
At 28, it's easy to forget that Duffy has been part of this side and playing first-class cricket for more than a decade now, having debuted as an Invercargill schoolboy.
With a mischievious smile he'll utter the words "Southern Volts" on occasion and is the early top wicket-taker, and the only player to have taken a bag home from each of the first two rounds. In fact, in just two rounds, he's already taken more first-class wickets than he did all last summer.
Number one Duffy | All images: PHOTOSPORT
Significantly, these were both away matches. The Volts traditionally start their seasons on the road as summers take slightly longer to warm up at home down south while more Northern parts of the country are cricket-ready for the longer format.
A big change in the lead-up to this season for the southern men (and women) was having an all-weather grass training marquee at University of Otago Oval for the first time, a temporary stucture that Otago plans to recreate with a permanent one in future.
The proof is in the pudding. The Volts had lost their opening Plunket Shield game of the season for four consecutive summers. This year, they opened with a brilliant win - with a day to spare - against the defending champs in Auckland, then put Northern Districts to the sword at the Mount.
Duffy was a key to both victories, and he was almost as useful with the bat in the Volts' long tail as he was with the new ball.
He took 5-27 and 3-71 in Auckland, and contributed 29 and an unbeaten 34* with his bat. At the Mount, he improved on both counts, taking 7-107 and 2-49, and whacking 70 at number 10 to really frustrate Northern after a long day in the field.
The only bowler to snare two bags from the two rounds, Duffy has 17 wickets already this season; last season no one topped 31 all summer.
Reckon Canterbury is really looking forward to facing him at Hagley Oval next week, in one of the most anticipated southern derbies in the red-ball format for years.
TOP WICKET-TAKERS
1. Jacob Duffy (Otago Volts): 17 wickets, 2 x bags, at 14.94 average
2. Matt Henry (Canterbury): 14 wickets at 11.14
3. Iain McPeake (Wellington Firebirds): 11 wickets, 1 x bag, at 23.81
4. Matt Fisher (Northern Districts): 10 wickets, 1 x bag, at 15.60
5. Michael Snedden (Wellington Firebirds): 10 wickets at 16.00
6. Doug Bracewell (Central Stags): 9 wickets, 1 x bag, at 16.00
7. Travis Muller (Otago Volts): 9 wickets at 23.00
Duffy wasn't the only greedy bowler around the traps.
In the following game in Auckland, veteran allrounder Doug Bracewell walked off Kennards Hire Community Oval with a bag as well, 5-25 off 11.5 overs, his 11th in the first-class game. He looked a bit sheepish about it because his brand new new-ball partner Brett Randell had bowled outstandingly for 4-21 off 12, and was denied a bag of his own.
With a classic, smooth action, Randell was last summer's leading wicket-taker - a breakthrough season that saw him overcome some of the challenges of living with Ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory condition that affects his back.
Randell was playing for Northern Districts then and took 31 wickets at just 14.83: top quality statchat. His addition to the Stags' attack alongside Blair Tickner, Doug Bracewell and left-armer Ray Toole - and with senior left-arm swing bowler Seth Rance in the wings for the back end of the campaign, has formed a powerful unit, and that's without even having mentioned BLACKCAPS spinner Ajaz Patel.
Canterbury has also started the season with a sharp-looking pace quartet, led by Matt Henry who has been utilising the movement through the air and been there or thereabouts every innings, and is in the top two wicket-takers nationally even without a bag as yet.
With big 21-year-old Will O'Rourke looking even more promising than he did in his debut summer last season, no doubt after a good winter of S&C, roll in a quick bag to Sean Davey (5-23 on a green seamer versus the Firebirds) and Canterbury looks to have very quickly compensated for the loss of Will Williams to County cricket this year.
Wellington seamer Iain McPeake (above) has also tucked away an early season bag with 5-82 and nine for the match at home, and Northern Districts' sharp young quick Matt Fisher picked up 5-66 in the same match for his debut five-wicket haul.
WATCH OUT FOR THIS LEGGIE
A young player to watch nailed his maiden first-class bag. Auckland Aces leg-spinner Adi (Adithya) Ashok achieved his first bag on his first-class debut against the Stags in Auckland, the only spinner to do so in the opening rounds.
The 20-year-old Indian born ex-NZ Under 19 star bowled for more than 40 overs, and his teammates relished every minute of it.
He returned 5-106 in the only innings with the ball, capping it off with the big wicket of Stags captain Tom Bruce who loves a bit of spin and had seemed merrily on his way to another double century at the time.
A bright spot in a tough fortnight for the defending champions who have opened their campaign with two thudding losses, despite winning the toss on both occasions at home.
TOMS CAN BAT
No real surprises as to who is leading the Plunket Shield run-making after the first two rounds: two of them are named Tom and three Toms have got hundreds. If you're a Tom, you're in form already.
BLACKCAP Tom Latham hauled his team into a match-winning position in round one in Nelson, but the lifeless pitch, and resistance from the Stags' tail that saw Tickner survive 100 deliveries, ultimately prevented the outright result that Latham had set up.
He backed up his 169 at Saxton with an unbeaten 143* on a green deck in Wellington, and this time Canterbury did get the chocolates they deserved.
The other notable notcher of big hundreds has been Stags captain Tom Bruce. Bruce was NZC's joint men's Domestic Player of the Year last season after becoming the first Plunket Shield batsman to score unbeaten double centuries back-to-back, in the last two games.
It was a drought-breaking season for the Stag and he's now added another big one already with 169 in Auckland.
Henry Cooper has shown his worth to ND with a solid start to his season. He's the second highest run-scorer nationally with 297 runs from four innings.
Other batsman to put three figures in the scoresheet have been Cooper's top order teammate Bharat Popli, and Wellington Firebirds duo Rachin Ravindra and Tom Blundell who had a stunning all-round personal game in the opening round.
The unluckiest have perhaps been the Volts pair Dean Foxcroft and Thorn Parkes, who both missed out on a debut century by a whisker or two at Bay Oval. That's if you don't count regular Stags skipper Greg Hay suffering a broken arm in the nets and Ben Smith a ruptured testicle in Auckland as worse luck.
Gisborne-born Parkes represented ND at age group and A level, but made the switch to Otago last summer and is proving to be a great acquisition.
At 22, he's another rising star. He scored his first two half centuries in round one, which was just his second Plunket Shield match, against Auckland.
Then he had a great second round at Bay Oval, almost going on to what would have been a maiden century before he was caught.
TOP RUN-SCORERS
1. TOM Latham (Canterbury): 336 runs, 2 x 100, at 168 average
2. Henry Cooper (Northern Districts): 297 runs, 1 x 100, 2 x 60 at 74.25
3. TOM Bruce (Central Stags): 245 runs, 1 x 100, 1 x 50, at 81.66
4. Bharat Popli (Northern Districts): 225 runs, 1 x 100, 1 x 50 at 78.66
5. Thorn Parkes (Otago Volts): 208 runs, 3 x 50 at 69.33
6. TOM Blundell (Wellington Firebirds): 196 runs, 1 x 100, 1 x 50 at 49.00
TRICK OR TREAT
For an October trick, this is one the Wellington Firebirds simply need to forget. Their totals of 80 and 87 against Canterbury at the Cello Basin Reserve saw them make history for all the wrong reasons, as it was the lowest match aggregate in the history of the Plunket Shield.
The Shield began in 1906/07 so that certainly doesn’t come along every day.
For a treat, it's hard to go past Auckland Ace Will O'Donnell's brilliant catch in the opening round in Auckland. If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favour here.
One quarter of the way into the 2022/23 first-class championship, three teams remain unbeaten (Canterbury, the Volts and the Stags), and three teams are tied for 24 points at the top of the table (Canterbury, the Volts and the Wellington Firebirds), with the Stags one point behind. Meanwhile the defending champions are at the wrong end of the table.
Two more rounds of Plunket Shield before Christmas will take us to the halfway mark of the season (before teams switch to The Ford Trophy and Dream11 Super Smash) and it will be fascinating to see which teams will be holding the cards heading into the break.
Come-from-behind championship wins are rare in the Plunket Shield. The lore is that you want to be in the top three or so teams before the championship's resumption in February, in order to be a contender and control your own destiny.
Who will do that best in 2022/23?
