A batting allrounder who bowls right-arm medium pace and offspin, Rob Nicol was the only new face in New Zealand's squad for the 2010 ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies. The right-handed batsman played eight seasons for Auckland before shifting to Canterbury in 2009-10. Nicol was a consistent performer for Auckland, his best returns coming in 2002-03 when he scored 664 State Championship runs. He was also impressive in his first stint with Canterbury, scoring 514 first-class runs. He was Canterbury's leading run-scorer in the Twenty20 HRV Cup with 237 runs at a strike-rate of 127.41 and that won him a promotion to the national squad.