The Stags and ND engage in a preseason friendly | MBUTCHER

The Ford Trophy - and summer - countdown begins

For the past couple of weeks, one might have found oneself driving around Wellington's most glamorous roundabout - a.k.a. the Cello Basin Reserve, or strolling by Auckland's Melville Park or cutting through Napier's Nelson Park and noticing some rather intense games of cricket going on.

The players may have been in coloured clothing, soundly formed athletes sucking on Powerades.

The appeals rising up from the bowlers and cordons will have been intense. Loud.

The batters might have ignored them all the same, unrattled in a practised sort of way, before going about their intricate choreography that leads into taking the stance for the next delivery.

There were no trophies at stake, no points, no competitions to win in any of these games, but the intensity might have belied all that.

These were your Wellington Firebirds and Canterbury men, your Central Stags and Northern Districts cricketers, your Auckland Aces and Otago Volts stars all priming for 10.30am, Sunday, 20 October 2024.

Blair Tickner bowls at Nelson Park as ND's Katene Clark and teammates watch on | MBUTCHER

Given some compliant weather gods, The Ford Trophy will get underway at that precise time in New Plymouth, Wellington and Whangārei - and with it, the 2024/25 NZC Domestic cricket season.

Opening with a white-ball format is a refresh for the overall NZC cricket calendar.

That honour is more regularly claimed by the pre-Christmas half of the first-class (four-day, red ball) Plunket Shield championship.

This season though, five of the 10 Ford Trophy rounds will kickstart summer, bringing the completely free sporting entertainment not only to Taranaki, the capital, and Kauri country, but to Christchurch, Mt Maunganui, Hamilton, Dunedin and Rangiora - before early November's switcheroo to the first-class whites.

So what else is new?

Off-season staff movements and recuitments have brought another smattering of new Head Coach appointments over the previous months, while several teams may have new captains.

Rob Nicol | PHOTOSPORT

At 41, former BLACKCAP and Domestic player Rob Nicol has become the new Head Coach of the Auckland Aces - a team he represented from his Domestic debut in 2001/02 to 2008/09, and again from 2014/15 to 2016/17, after a mid-career spell with Canterbury.

Nicol's already had Head Coach experience with his home Association, having been the Auckland Hearts' mentor for the last two seasons. He's got his opportunity with the Aces after the departure of Doug Watson to coach Scotland's international men's side.

Nicol knows first-hand what it takes to win The Ford Trophy. He was on the winning side when the Aces beat the Otago Volts in Dunedin for the 2007 title.

In 2011, when he was playing for Canterbury, he scored a century in that summer's Final, but his old team still came up trumps.

Last season, it was another Auckland-Canterbury Grand Final, Canterbury winning a weather-shortened chase to head into this season as the trophy-holders.

Match Report and Video Scorecard

The fresh campaign will lead to a late February 2v3 Elimination Final, and then 2 March Grand Final against the top qualifier, for the top three teams at the end of the 10 rounds.

Luke Georgeson stood out in his first season with the Volts | PHOTOSPORT

In Dunedin, Luke Georgeson's rapid rise through the ranks sees him captaining the Otago Volts this summer in the one-day and four-day formats, after Dean Foxcroft elected to vacate the leadership.

At 25, it's just the allrounder's second season with the Volts (after having represented ND as a youngster, and then moving to Wellington for four summers) - and he'll be combining with new Head Coach, Ashley (Ash) Noffke.

Noffke, 47, represented Australia as a quick bowler a few times in the late 2000s, and over the past 13 years he's held a number of key High Performance coaching roles including Head of Female Pathways and Performance at Queensland Cricket; Head Coach of the Brisbane Heat in the WBBL, and of the Queensland Fire; London Spirit in The Hundred; and assistant coach of the UP Warriorz in the WPL.

Southern fans will be hoping the double change brings some luck, with the Otago Volts having last held aloft The Ford Trophy in 2008.

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Later this week, we'll check back in to look at more personnel news across the Major Associations as we count down to that much anticipated word from the umpires on Sunday: "Play!"

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