ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2020

280 New Zealand in 2019/20 the season was called off their two remaining, unplayed, matches were against the two bottom teams; moreover, their earlier match against Otago had been abandoned without a ball bowled. But they were only in fourth place, 29 points behind Wellington when the season came to its premature end, and had lost to them by an innings in the last round of matches that were actually played. Over the season as a whole there could be little doubt that Wellington deserved their title.  The Plunket Shield had been reduced from a double round-robin in the previous season to make room for more matches for the New Zealand A side, in the hope of providing a better stepping- stone between Shield and Test cricket. The A side played three matches in 2019/20, one against England and two against India A. All three ended as draws, generally high-scoring. Three uncapped players – Glenn Phillips, Daryl Mitchell and Kyle Jamieson – graduated from the A side to the Test XI during the season, the last-named in particular acquitting himself well when he moved up to the higher level.  A word is due for Central Districts’ wicketkeeper Dane Cleaver, who took 196 off the India A attack at Christchurch when batting at number 7, and three weeks later scored 201 from number 6 in a Plunket Shield match. He ended as the second-highest runscorer of the season in all first-class cricket, as well as the most successful wicketkeeper in terms of his number of dismissals. There are currently three wicketkeepers in New Zealand’s established Test XI, and it seems unlikely that Cleaver will be able to break into the national side any time soon. But there is no doubt that New Zealand is blessed with a fine hand of wicketkeeper-batsmen (or perhaps batsmen-wicketkeepers) just at present.  With 672 runs, Cleaver was second in the season’s runscorers behind Wellington’s Johannesburg- born left-hander Devon Conway, whose 701 runs at 87.62 were all made in the Plunket Shield. They included an innings of 327* against Canterbury; his personal aggregate of 393 runs in this game was a new record for any first-class match in New Zealand. Top of the charts among the bowlers was another left-hander, Neil Wagner, with 37 wickets (22 of them for Northern Districts) at the impressive average of 23.45. (KSW) Plunket Shield 2019/20: Final table P W L D A BatBP BowBP Pts NetRpW 12 0 0 4 1 Wellington 6 4 1 1 0 15 20 83 5.338 2 Central Districts 6 2 3 1 0 10 23 57 0.238 3 Otago 6 2 1 2 1 9 18 55 -5.753 4 Auckland 6 2 1 2 1 10 16 54 5.208 5 Canterbury 6 1 3 2 0 13 20 45 -3.748 6 Northern Districts 6 1 3 2 0 14 16 42 -1.478 NOTE: The last two rounds of matches, which were cancelled owing to the pandemic, are ignored in the above table. New Zealand Cricket awarded the Shield to Wellington .