ODIs? What ODIs?

If, like me, you are looking for cricketing solace take a gander at the New Zealand Cricket website. Because the domestic season starts today and this site has links to live coverage of all the State Championship matches. In the first round Canterbury take on Wellington, Central Districts play Auckland and Northern are up against Otago.

TVNZ has a surprisingly good little rundown on the teams. Auckland has made the most gains over the winter and really will be the side to beat this year. To add to TVNZ's summary, I am going to do a little work for you in discussing the foreign players plying their trade in New Zealand first-class cricket this season:

Northern Districts has Welshman Alun Evans, a 30 year old middle order batsman with a so-so record and no county side to call home since Glamorgan released him in 2002.

Otago have replaced Muhammad Wasim (who had a terrible time last year) with young South African Jonathan Trott, who has an excellent record with the bat and can also bowl right-arm medium. Trott now bases himself at Warwickshire in England and, given he is playing here this season and not in South Africa, has presumably decided to pass on representing his homeland at international level.

Wellington has its own young South African all-rounder in Grant Elliott. Elliott has played for a number of South African sides without ever establishing himself in any of them.

Finally, and perhaps most impressively, Canterbury have landed former West Indian quick man Nixon McLean. This is likely to be a shrewd move by McLean, who will have a good few weeks of cricket to make an impression before his national side tours. Let's hope it goes well for him, because it sounds like he has had a bad run with injuries lately.