The Ford Trophy in Numbers — Week Two
47
Number of days between Round Three and Round Four of The Ford Trophy. In recent summers, the one-day fun has been one continuous late-summer roll; now this year it bookends the Burger King Super Smash. Cool how all the T20 stars have got in against the white ball already, huh — can’t wait for the Aces v Stags opening match at Eden Park Outer Oval 4pm this Wednesday.
EIGHT
Number of white ball centuries so far this summer. Four on Sunday alone. Shoutouts to Michael Pollard (Canterbury), Stephen Murdoch (Firebirds), Mark Chapman (Aces) and high five to Dane Cleaver (Stags) for his match-winning maiden List A ton, carrying his bat and all. Serious effort when you’ve already kept wicket for 50 overs, that.
Mark Chapman's looking to Ace it. MButcher/CDCA
ONE
Number of white ball scores in the nineties this summer. George Worker. Still won the game and broke a couple of records, makes ya feel better eh.
139.75
Colin Munro’s white ball strike rate this summer. Cue flame emojis. But it’s not even the highest. Check this lot: Brett Hampton 163.88. Brent Arnel (who’s been working really, really assiduously on his number 11 batting, seriously) and Matt McEwan, both exactly 142.85. Ish Sodhi 141.66. Adam Milne 140.00. Difference being, they all bat down the order and Colin Munro does the business at the top, plus, if you added up all their runs put together, it still wouldn’t be as many as Munro’s 225 from three knocks. Boomfa!
Munro smashes it. PHOTOSPORT
EIGHT
Wickets by the joint leading Ford Trophy wicket-takers, shared by Mitch McClenaghan and that evergreen man Arnel. Two completely contrasting styles of pace bowling, both treated with due caution. Best figures, 4-41 and 4-40 respectively. Pretty sure these two weren’t separated-at-birth-etc, however, as that’s where the similarity ends. Arnel’s 4-40 is also the top innings haul in the limited over season to date.
Mitch McClenaghan; scarier or just hairier than Brent Arnel? PHOTOSPORT
TWO
Number of bowlers with economy rates below five and over. Surprisingly, they’re both pacemen — speedster Lockie Ferguson and Matt Henry. To be fair, Ferguson missed the Aces’ game at Pukekura Park which may have tested the maths.
Great southern manlove as Rob Nicol ups his strike rate to boot. MButcher/CDCA
The tweaking trio of Volts Anaru Kitchen, Michael Rippon and Rob Nicol DID roll their arm over at Pukekura, however, so they should get some cred for coming in as the next three most economical white ball exponents in the land. Still, didn’t win that one, cricket eh?
TWO
Number of times Canterbury kingman Andrew Ellis has taken a T20 five-wicket bag. Rare as snail’s legs. Not many people anywhere can say they’ve done that. Both of them were at Seddon Park, his career best 5-9 against ND in 2015/16 and he had the 5-14 against the Firebirds the season before back when everyone was playing everyone everywhere all over back to back. Pretty awesome off his own bowling btw.
There he goes taking wickets again. PHOTOSPORT
FIVE
Number of wickets Andrew Ellis needs to become the first bloke to take 100 T20 wickets in Burger King Super Smash, not counting the two wickets he took in the North v South “Island of Origin” T20s. If you want to get highly technical, he’s taken four wickets for New Zealand XIs, too, in non-official T20 internationals in various places. So we’ll just stick with the Canterbury ones and keep it simple stupid. To put it in perspective, (1) the next best nationally for the blokes' game is Luke Woodcock’s 84 for the Firebirds (Michael Bates took 84 for the Aces, too, before he retired and re-emerged this season as a coach) while the next best T20 red-and-black career haul for Canterbury is Logan van Beek with 35 and Ronnie Hira with 33 and neither of them play for the Cantabs anymore, so Ellis really only needs to stop breaking bits and pieces of his hands to be the first to 100. Watch this space.
FOUR
Not one of the more commonly fancied or even garden variety Ford Trophy stats, this, but number of matches so far in which a team smacked out their runs at a rate that was better than run a ball. Which, you know, is nice, and exciting with T20 just round the corner. For the record, the Firebirds went at over seven in their adjusted chase in Auckland, the Stags went at six-plus twice (both in New Plymouth and biiiiiig Whangarei) and the Aces did it at home at Outer Oval.
Crunch. MButcher/NZC
30
Number of stands worth 50 or more runs. Two words: batting weather. Buckle up, Burger King Super Smash is nearly here!
