Early Guide To The 2024/25 Women's Domestic Cricket Summer
As the White Ferns try to flip their mundane form around for the T20 World Cup, the women's domestic cricket circuit holds plenty of intrigue ahead of the summer. There weren't too many movements in the rosters announced recently and all the domestic cricket teams are promoting youngsters from within their systems, which brings together two different perspectives about the wahine cricket landscape.
Veterans have dipped out of domestic contracts and this is a reminder of fans not being too stressed about contracts as those veterans can still play lots of domestic cricket without contracts. Actual retirements do leave holes in the maturity of women's domestic cricket and less grizzly veterans could impact the quality of cricket played this season.
Youngsters are unreliable and inconsistent but Aotearoa is building a competitive pool of young cricketers who now have opportunities to stack up runs/wickets. This is aided by more high quality cricket for young players with increased investment in age-group tournaments, schoolgirl cricket, an Aotearoa Under 19 team and tours like the upcoming NZ Development team heading over to Australia later this month.
Another fresh addition to the domestic landscape was an NZ-A team hosting England A, losing the T20 series but winning the one-dayers. The NZ-A group featured a bunch of fringe White Ferns and Mikaela Greig was a key figure in the one-day series win, although in true White Ferns styles, Greig didn't play a game in the horrible tour of England in which White Ferns were swept 0-8 across both formats.
Greig and Kate Anderson have both earned promotions to the White Ferns thanks to dominant mahi in the domestic circuit. Anderson was then shunned from White Ferns despite being the only NZ-A batter to register a 50+ score in the T20s and Greig was overlooked.
Other notable players in this 25-30yrs bracket are Leigh Kasperek, Polly Inglis, Caitlin Blakely and Saachi Shahri. Kasperek is one of the 11 best cricketers in Aotearoa but she is yanked in and out of White Ferns teams. Inglis earned a White Ferns contract as the back up wicket-keeper which A) completely ignores Jess McFadyen's consistent dominance with Wellington and B) as seen with Greig and Anderson, this contract probably won't lead to much White Ferns cricket.
As has been the case for the last few summers, Blakely and Shahri are two batters to keep close tabs on with Otago and Auckland respectively. Here is their NZ-A mahi vs England A...
Caitlin Blakely (28yrs | righty): 133 runs @ 44avg/83sr (OD) | 24 runs @ 24avg/133sr (T20)
Saachi Shahri (26yrs | righty): 84 runs @ 42avg/96sr | 50 runs @ 16.6avg/102sr
Here is how Blakely and Shahri performed last summer in HBJ Shield and Super Smash...
Caitlin Blakely: 272 runs @ 27.2avg/69sr (HBJ) | 132 runs @ 26.4avg/117.8sr (SS)
Saachi Shahri: 259 runs @ 28.7avg/84sr | 126 runs @ 15.7avg/98sr
Batters like Blakely are funky examples of how Aotearoa lacks pure power hitting but has quirky scorers with strokes all around the park. Blakely's Super Smash strike-rate was ranked sixth last summer and she was the only emerging batter who scored 30+ runs with a strike-rate over 110. All of which was done without a six from Blakely and her 24 runs @ 133sr vs England A only featured two boundaries; batters can score quickly without smacking boundaries.
No emerging batter hit two or more sixes in Super Smash last summer. Here are the emerging batters who hit one six: Natasha Codyre (20yrs), Skye Bowden (23yrs), Carol Agafili (21yrs), Isabella James (25yrs).
Emerging batters who hit a six in HBJ Shield last summer: Flora Devonshire (21yrs), Holly Topp (23yrs), Olivia Gain (22yrs).
Below are the youngsters who scored the most runs/took the most wickets last summer...
HBJ Shield
Georgia Atkinson (24yrs | righty leggy): 274 runs @ 34.savg/68sr | 2w @ 15avg/3.7rpo
Kate Chander (17yrs | righty leggy): 244 runs @ 27.1avg/73sr | 5w @ 20.2avg/4.2rpo
Emma Black (23yrs | righty seam): 24w @ 11.5avg/3.3rpo
Kayley Knight (20yrs | righty seam): 18w @ 15.4avg/5.1rpo
Xara Jetly (23yrs | righty offy): 17w @ 19.4avg/3.7rpo
Marama Downes (21yrs | righty seam): 12w @ 22.1avg/4rpo
Bree Illing (20yrs | lefty seam): 11w @ 26.6avg/5.2rpo
Super Smash
Prue Catton (21yrs | righty): 186 runs @ 23.2avg/105.6sr
Marama Downes: 16w @ 12.6avg/5.5rpo
Emma Black: 13w @ 16.6avg/6rpo
Skye Bowden (righty seam): 10w @ 12.2avg/7.6rpo
There are more bowlers than batters in those two lists above as most of the run-scoring was done by batters like McFadyen, Greig, Anderson, Natalie Dodd, Caitlin Gurrey and Francis Mackay. There is also a strong crop of seamers with Illing (Auckland) adding a lefty to the mix and she is joined by Otago's PJ Watkins in the lefty equation, as well as Canterbury's Yssabel Cullen who doesn't have a contract but impressed in her one appearance last summer.
Aotearoa has impressive spin depth in the young/emerging bracket...
Auckland: Rishika Jaswal (17yrs)
ND: Nensi Patel (22yrs)
Wellington: Jetly, Chandler, Rachel Bryant (19yrs)
CD: Atkinson, Ashtuti Kumar (21yrs), Flora Devonshire, Ocean Bartlett (21yrs)
Canterbury: Sarah Asmussen (24yrs), Abigail Hotton (19yrs)
Otago: Anna Browning (20yrs), Isy Parry (19yrs)
Hot Pockets
Canterbury went 2-7 to finish last in HBJ Shield and 2-6 to finish fifth in Super Smash last summer. Those results aren't the status-quo for Canterbury wahine but Mackay was excellent as usual with six 50+ scores across both formats, while the next best was Anderson's two 50+ scores in HBJ Shield. Mackay was also Canterbury's best HBJ Shield bowler.
How Canterbury bounce back this summer will be interesting. They have a lovely mix of maturity and youth in a settled squad that has played together for a few seasons now, so they should bounce back. That will require more mahi from youngsters like Jodie Dean and Izzy Sharp, as well as solid domestic performers like Nat Cox, Laura Hughes and Gabby Sullivan.
Otago won the HBJ Shield with a fantastic batting unit and finished fourth in Super Smash with Blakely offering the only 50+ score aside from Suzie Bates. Bates, Blakely, Inglis and Felicity Robertson all had HBJ Shield 50+ scores, while Saffron Wilson hit a hundy. Add in Isabella James and Olivia Gain who have also flashed their talent and Otago may have one of the best batting units when excluding White Ferns.
This is aided by coach Craig Cumming who has already shown strong batting development as Sparks coach. Whether it's Inglis having her best campaign with the bat or Wilson being one of three HBJ Shield batters to hit a century last season (only one who hasn't played for White Ferns) and Otago have already tapped into this batting development.
The notable movements ahead of the summer were Anna Browning and Skye Bowden leaving Auckland. Browning picked up a contract with Otago as a spinning all-rounder who could absorb the retirement of Sophie Oldershaw, while Bowden has moved to Northern Districts without a contract.
Bowden was Auckland's best Super Smash bowler last summer and is among the best young cricketers in Aotearoa. Now she adds quality to the ND seam attack that already has Downes and Knight. Browning didn't offer big stats last season but she did play a crucial role in Auckland's Super Smash win over Canterbury with 3 overs @ 7rpo and 16* @ 160sr. That was one of Auckland's two wins last season and Browning should be a consistent 1st 11 cricketer for Otago this summer.
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