ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2015

Zealand can aspire to third place again. Nevertheless the quality of their cricket, and even more the enterprising way in which they play it, have made New Zealand perhaps the most popular team in the world amongst neutral supporters. At home, Canterbury retained the Plunket Shield title, after a season in which all but one of the six participants had headed the table at some point – and the odd team out, Otago, had been as high as second place with only three rounds of matches to go. It had been a very closely-fought contest up to that point, but three wins in their last four matches took Canterbury home, to become the first side since Auckland in 2002/03 to win the domestic first-class competition in successive seasons. The domestic highlight was Dean Brownlie’s innings of 334 for Northern Districts against Central Districts, the highest individual innings in New Zealand’s domestic cricket in over 60 years. For the second season running no batsman reached 1,000 first-class runs in the home season, though the leading runscorer Stephen Murdoch (Wellington) could not have got much closer: he scored 998 runs at an average of 52.52. A word of commendation is also due for wicket-keeper/batsman Bradley Cachopa, the middle of Auckland’s three South Africa-born Cachopa brothers, who headed the batting averages (amongst those playing regularly) with 783 runs at 71.18 despite usually batting at number 7. Otago’s 20-year-old fast-medium bowler Jacob Duffy took the most wickets with 45 at 24.06, with a leg-spinner – Todd Astle (Canterbury) – only one wicket behind with 44 at 23.68. (KSW) Plunket Shield 2014/15: Final table P W L D BatBP BowBP Pts NetRpW 12 0 0 1 Canterbury 10 6 4 0 14 36 122 5.642 2 Auckland 10 5 4 1 16 39 115 5.427 3 Otago 10 4 4 2 17 34 99 -3.064 4 Northern Districts 10 4 4 2 16 34 98 -1.616 5 Wellington 10 4 4 2 8 37 93 -3.320 6 Central Districts 10 2 5 3 13 32 69 -3.801 212 New Zealand in 2014/15