Super Smash 2025 - season recap

Posted Thursday, 25 December, 2025 in Domestic News

The latest edition of New Zealand's Super Smash begins this Boxing Day, the 12 teams ready to rumble all over again following a spectacular summer last season.

Wellington Blaze and the Central Stags head in as the title-holders, and will both be in action for the first time the following day, 27 December, in Palmerston North.

Opening the T20 card is the Auckland Aces and Hearts against Northern Brave's men and women in Hamilton, kicking off at Seddon Park 2.10pm with the men up first and the women's game under lights from 6.20pm.

The Blaze nabbed a record ninth title last summer - that's the most by any team in either the men’s or women’s division, and captain Melie Kerr was the top overall run-scorer from either the men’s or women’s half of New Zealand's exciting T20 national championship.

The 24-year-old cricket superstar finished with 441 runs from 12 games at a 63.00 average, after she captained Blaze to an eight-run victory that broke the Sparks' hearts in the Grand Final at the Cello Basin Reserve.

Melie magic | All photos: PHOTOSPORT

The Sparks were consoled on the stats front by spinner Eden Carson emerging as the top wicket-taker of the entire T20 Domestic season, with 18 victims — ahead of teammate and import Kirstie Gordon, Northern Brave’s import Chamari Athapaththu and Central Stag and top men's wicket-taker, Blair Tickner.

They all finished with 16 victims, while the Kerr sisters were not far behind with 15 (spinner Melie) and 14 (pace bowler Jess Kerr).

Two cricket families combined to produce 1,429 of the runs scored in the season, thanks to the Kerr sisters and Boyle brothers, all four indviduals appearing in the respective Grand Finals!

In his breakthrough season, 22-year-old Matt Boyle (Canterbury Kings) finished as the men’s top run-scorer with 377 runs at a crisp 156.43 strike rate, including a new career best of 81 not out.

His elder brother Jack (a former Kings player who migrated to the Central Stags, and is now in his first summer with the Volts) was the men’s third highest run-scorer with 285, including his career best 82 not out.

The Stags win their first title since 2019

Winning Stags captain Tom Bruce was meanwhile in commanding form with 339 runs, finishing second in the men’s run tallies with a 157.67 strike rate but lifting the main prize.

Jess Kerr’s maiden T20 half century against the Central Hinds in Nelson opened the floodgates to her best season yet with the bat, after the WHITE FERN put a lot of hours into improving this facet of her game.

Jess Kerr celebrates victory with her sister Melie

The elder Kerr sibling was rewarded by 326 runs and three half centuries at a healthy 119.41 strike rate.

The Central Stags had qualified top of the table in the men’s half of the competition, and defeated a strong Canterbury Kings side by six wickets in the Grand Final after chasing down 135/8 at the Basin.

Tom Bruce led from the front

Unlike the tug-of-war women’s Grand Final that oscillated between the two contenders, the men’s trophy match saw the Stags control their destiny from the moment Bruce won the toss and elected to bowl.

After a string of fourth place finishes, it was the Stags’ first Grand Final appearance in seven years, having last lifted the title in Hamilton on 2018/19 which had coincidentally been Bruce’s first season as captain.

The Kings have spent a remarkable five straight years as the runner-up and will be hungrier than ever to put that behind them this summer.

The Canterbury men were Super Smash’s very first champion when the competition began 19 years ago, but incredibly have not taken the title since.

Last summer they brought an all-star BLACKCAPS attack to the capital that had served them so well in the brutal Elimination Final against Northern Brave on the previous day, but they came up short against a team that far less experienced faces performing key roles.

Emerging Stags Curtis Heaphy and Will Clark

At just 21, Toby Findlay (son of former Stag Craig Findlay) emerged as an exciting asset for the Stags in his first Super Smash season.

Findlay had debuted in the first-class Plunket Shield two years earlier as a concussion substitute for Brett Randell, and it was the Napier youngster’s first season now as a contracted player, and, his first playing white-ball for the team.

He kept his cool to take 3/29 in the Grand Final, including the huge wicket of Daryl Mitchell who was caught by Jayden Lennox on 46.

Lennox finished with the equal most catches, alongside Volt Dale Phillips — they both took 11.

Suzie Bates, Melie Kerr and Kings captain Cole McConchie were not far behind with 10, all standouts in the field.

Lennox, 30, has emerged from the shadow of premier Stags spinner Ajaz Patel over recent years, and was one of two front-line spinners for the champions, with Angus Schaw — handy for the Stags as Patel ended up missing the entire campaign as he recuperated from a knee injury.

Schaw had debuted in early 2023 but this was his first full campaign, and he contributed not only with the ball, but as the team’s finisher with the bat — winning crucial games in that role alongside Will Clark and Curtis Heaphy and going on to star for the team again in July's Guyana Global Super League, where the Stags finished third of five international franchises.

The Super Smash presented by KFC begins on this Friday, Boxing Day 26 December at Seddon Park with every match this summer available to watch live and free on TVNZ+ and TVNZ DUKE in New Zealand, with live scoring at nzc.nz and the NZC App.

Get tickets and see the full schedule at www.supersmash.co.nz and in case you missed it, school up on the new bonus point system introduced for the women's division only this season and what it means for the six female sides across the country.