Jacob Duffy. PHOTO: ODT FILES
Hitting the mark
Jacob Duffy. PHOTO: ODT FILES
Volts spearhead Jacob Duffy has winged his way to India.
He has replaced the injured Ben Sears in the test squad.
Hopefully this time the Duffman gets a crack.
He has been on two tours to England but has not had an opportunity at test level yet.
Be a shame if he just carries the drinks again (which is highly likely) because he will be sorely missed by the Volts.
They get their season under way on Sunday with a one-dayer against Northern Districts in Whangarei.
Duffy has carried the Volts attack probably since Neil Wagner transferred to Northern Districts six years ago.
The 30-year-old has to rate as one of the province’s best seamers and he is sitting on 299 first-class wickets. It would be a tremendous occasion if his 300th scalp was also his maiden test wicket.
Crease bound
Grumble time. Duffy has been promoted by the association as Otago’s leading wicket-taker. Someone had the bright idea of lumping all the wickets he has taken across the three formats and describing him that way.
That would be like counting the tries Jonah Lomu scored in sevens and adding them to his All Blacks total. It is nonsense.
It is much, much harder to remove a first-class batter from the crease than someone having a whack in the last over of a T20 fixture.
Stephen Boock is Otago’s leading wicket-taker in first-class cricket with 399 wickets. Duffy has taken 263 wickets in 86 first-class games for the province and is Otago’s seventh leading wicket-taker in the format.
Duffy is the leading wicket-taker in the other two formats. And he is a wonderful performer.
But that record of Boock’s remains some way off.
Clubbing it
The Dunedin premier competition does not begin until November 2.
The Volts will have played four one-dayers by then.
Ideally club cricket would get under way first and that way the Otago players could blow out a few cobwebs.
North East Valley will be chasing a third consecutive title. Green Island was the last club to manage that feat.
They reigned supreme from 2016 to 2019 and won four in a row between 2007 and 2011.
The Dunedin female league has been abandoned just two years after it was launched with much fanfare.
The marketing team probably prefer the word ‘‘migrated’’ to abandoned because there will be opportunities for females to play club cricket.
The four teams will operate under the University-Grange banner this season and play against secondary school boys’ teams.
But it feels like a backwards step for female cricket in the city. New Zealand Cricket are putting a lot of resources into women’s cricket at the top level — let’s hope they have not forgotten about the grassroots game.
The declaration
Former England captain Joe Root has attained a career high.
Following his recent double century against Pakistan, his career test rating points have soared to 935.
Only three England batters to have reached higher career ratings: Len Hutton (945), Jack Hobbs (942) and Peter May (941).
He’s not a patch on Kane Williamson, though, right?
