Conway Scraps New Technique to Spark New Zealand’s Dominant Display at Trent Bridge

Devon Conway abandoned a mid-innings technical adjustment to revert to his trusted pre-delivery trigger movement, helping New Zealand seize control on day one against England at Trent Bridge.

Faced with Gus Atkinson’s opening over after Tom Latham won the toss and elected to bat under clear skies in Nottingham, Conway experimented with keeping his back foot stationary during the first three deliveries of his eventual 157 not out. The approach initially left him looking uncomfortable, as he fended off his ribcage and was struck on the back pad, prompting an immediate tactical reversal.

“I still felt a little bit out-of-sorts at times,” Conway told Sky Sports. “I’ve been struggling a little bit with my pre-movement throughout the series admittedly, so it was quite nice just to get through those tougher periods and then just put the bowlers under pressure and build a partnership.”

The 32-year-old batsman explained his thought process: “I was actually trying out keeping my back foot still and not actually having that pre-movement, because I was getting it in too late throughout this series. I tried it for the first three balls and then I scratched that idea, and just said, ‘Right, try and go back to getting that back foot moving, but just try and get that movement in a little bit earlier.'”

New Zealand batting coach Luke Ronchi supported the adaptive approach, noting: “All the guys work on technical things, but Dev was just trying a few little things, doing a few little drills just to work out his prelim [preliminary movement] and how it might work and how it might feel. Today, it worked nicely for him.”

“For the first few balls, he was trying one thing and then he changed to another thing, but it helped marry up the way he wants to do it and make the movement more fluid, the way he’d like to be before the bowler lets go of the ball.”

Conway’s aggressive 149-minute innings included a ‘rock-the-baby’ celebration after reaching three figures – a nod to the birth of his second child, Taylor, during the series. “It was a long trip, but I was really grateful that New Zealand allowed me that opportunity to get back to be with my wife and see the little ones,” he said. “Tommy did whisper in my ear, ‘I want to see the baby celebration’. We did speak about it, so it was nice to bring it out.”

The 317-run opening stand with Latham moved the duo past the 2000-Test-match milestone as a pairing, narrowly missing their previous best of 323 against West Indies in December. Ronchi emphasized the significance: “There’s a couple of little records we’ve been told about with these two batting together. It’s been fantastic… To play like they did and put a partnership on like that, that’s a massive plus for our day.”

“Obviously it’s amazing to win the toss, bat, and have a partnership like that,” Ronchi concluded. “The guys have been working really hard leading into the series and our batting, as a group, has got better as the Tests have gone on… It was nice to get to where we have done at the end of the day.”

Source link