The advantage of being a text commentator is that you get the opportunity to cover numerous franchise leagues, alongside international matches. You’re constantly typing thousands of words in order to describe various passages of play. One of those matches that I covered during my time as a text commentator was between Lions and Dolphins in South Africa’s now-defunct Ram Slam tournament in December 2015.
Devon Philip Conway, who was then plying his trade in South Africa, essayed a 46-ball 63. It’s true that Conway put on a fine exhibition of strokeplay – maybe a few pulls, square-drives, slog-sweeps and cuts. But it wasn’t the kind of an innings that would echo in the mind for years together. That innings is also at the heart of Conway’s profile – A consistent performer who tends to go under the radar.
Before a match that involves Conway, you are unlikely to see a fan buying a T-shirt with his name printed on the back. You rarely get to see anyone on social-media platforms saying: “I’m Conway’s biggest fan.” But Conway continues to put runs on the board: he averages over 40 in Test cricket, first-class cricket, T20s, T20Is, ODIs and List-A cricket. That is just remarkable consistency.
His numbers in the IPL offer further proof of this – 314 runs at an average 52.33 in the ongoing season, and 252 runs at an average of 42 last year. More importantly, he scores those runs at a healthy strike -rate. Yet, despite the impressive numbers, Conway hardly hogs the limelight.
Just consider the last two knocks he has played for Chennai Super Kings: 56 against Kolkata Knight Riders, and 77* versus Sunrisers Hyderabad. At Eden Gardens, Ajinkya Rahane rightly stole the limelight for his breathtaking display of batsmanship. And by the time Conway composed a half-century against Hyderabad, the collective performance of Chennai’s bowlers had already made the headlines. However, Conway doesn’t seem to care about whether he gets recognition for his feats or not. His only mantra seems to be to put runs on the scoreboard.
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To know more about Conway’s insatiable hunger for runs, let’s retrace a journey he made just over six years ago. In 2017, he left South Africa, and took the risk of emigrating to New Zealand, another Southern Hemisphere country some 11000 km away. Incidentally, in March 2017, Conway had compiled his maiden first-class double-century. But curiously, that turned out to be his final chapter in South African cricket. He had played only a few games in top-level South African franchise cricket, and it was time to search for greener pastures.
It was indeed a huge risk that Conway took. He wound up everything in South Africa, which included selling his property. He took up a coaching role in Wellington, which meant plenty of travelling and long hours. Conway managed all that, and eventually made his List-A debut for Wellington. He scored a couple of fifties in the first three games he played in that Ford Trophy, and he hasn’t looked back since.
In 2019-20, Conway topped the batting charts in all three domestic competitions – Ford Trophy, Plunket Shield and Super Smash. He qualified to play for New Zealand on August 28, 2020. He had mixed feelings about his eligibility at that time, as the Covid-19 pandemic was raging in most parts of the world. “Obviously really happy to hear the news about my eligibility, but then again, in saying that, with regards to what’s happening at the moment throughout the world, just puts [everything] in perspective,” he noted. But Covid or no covid, Conway’s appetite for runs remained the same. He amassed a memorable double-hundred on his Test debut at Lord’s in 2021. In just his second ODI, he played a measured hand of 72. His maiden T20I fifty came in his second appearance.
All the hard yards in anonymity in his own training workshop, and the sacrifices he made in order to shift to New Zealand, speak of devotion to his craft. And also the hope that one fine day, it would translate into lots of runs. Simply put, Conway made his own luck.