On June 4, 2021, the officials at Lord’s wrote the following: ‘2021, D. P Conway, New Zealand’ in black pen on a strip of tape and stuck it on the visitors’ honours board. He had become the latest visiting cricketer to score a century, a double century, at Lord’s. On that day, he also became the 111th player to score a century on debut.
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It’s June 2, 2021. James Anderson is at the top of his mark, ready to run in with the first delivery of the Test. Tom Latham has taken guard. And standing at the non-striker’s end is Devon Conway. This is it for him, his long and winding road has led him to a debut at Lord’s. Debuts don’t get any bigger than this.
Ideally, he would have loved it more if he had debuted at his home ground, the Basin Reserve, but very few stadiums could top this. Maybe The Wanderers.
In the weeks and months that followed his Black Caps call-up, Conway had been living a dream.
He had no idea when he will debut, but he started consulting and having talks with everyone from his Wellington coach to some of the senior players in the New Zealand side - Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor and Tom Latham.
"Listen, you're selected, you'll be playing your debut at Lord's against England. You'll be opening the batting," Stead had told him two days before New Zealand’s Test at Lord’s.
He was excited and didn’t want to make mistakes, so he reminded himself of the advice everyone had given him in the run-up to this moment.
Using different words, everyone - including Phil Neale, who had handed him his debut cap at the previous night’s cap ceremony - had told him the same thing, "Go out there express yourself, just do what you've been doing in the past, and you'll be fine. Don't overthink it, don't try and be someone who you're not. Just go out there and do it your way."
The day has finally arrived. This is it, this is his moment.
The year is 2017. The Proteas have failed at another international tournament, the ICC Champions Trophy. A number of writers covering the Proteas’ journey feel that the failure has more to do with the team’s collective mindset, rather than a lack of talent. The popular consensus is that something has to change if the team is to find success in the future.
That same year, Devon Conway came to the same realization about his own career, something had to change if he was to find any success in cricket in the future. Eight years on the fringes of franchise cricket was not something that he had envisioned for himself as a youngster when he had made the decision to put his football ambitions on the back burner and focus on cricket all year round. Already at 13, the dream was to make it big - play international cricket. Play Test cricket, to be precise.
“I played for the Southern Gauteng football team,” says Devon Conway. “I was a midfielder, and went to the provincial tournaments. I was also playing age-group cricket for Gauteng at the time. Football was the winter sport and cricket was the summer sport. So then I thought, ‘Okay, if I want to try and make it as a professional cricket player or try and make a career out of cricket, I'm going to try and train all year and play in the winter as well.’”
But that dream was proving to be elusive. Forget international cricket, his franchise career was in jeopardy. In his six years with the Lions - that was interrupted by a brief stint at Dolphins, Devon had only played 12 First Class games, averaging just 21 runs. There was a real possibility that he was not going to last 4 more seasons playing at this level.
“I was up and down the order, with no specific role,” says Conway. “Sometimes I was in the side because someone was left out.”
It was hard to not feel like surplus requirements and unappreciated. There were times when he found himself batting at number 7, and he did not even bowl - well, he can’t bowl.
Anyway, being shunted up and down the order, going up and down from the franchise side to the second B side had a negative effect on Devon Conway. The effect was visible on his form - he lacked consistency, and never got a chance to make a case for himself. It also left him confused about his role and lacking in confidence in his skills. There were times when he doubted his skills and his process; times he doubted himself.
This was not the career he wanted for himself. The years he had spent time learning technique and facing balls from Jimmy Cook from age 11 till he was 25, all would be for nothing, flushed down the toilet, if he did not do anything about his situation.
“He just knew my game better than anyone else,” Devon says of Jimmy Cook. “He always had full faith in my ability and he always encouraged me and pushed me in the directions that I needed to go.”
Devon Conway had put in too much work for him to settle. He couldn’t settle for the crumbs that fell his way, that would be shortchanging the young boy who had started playing cricket at the age of six with the help of his sisters who were always ready to bowl to him. They would bowl to him all day if need be.
“I had two older sisters who would bowl to me and I'll try and bat the whole day, which is ideal’” he laughs “So, a lot of credit has to go to them for my success. They allowed me the opportunity to bat.”
If he settled, all the work he had put in from the age of six when his father had enrolled him at Kempton Park Cricket Club would go to waste. It would be an ignoble end to a career of a young cricketer who had done well on his journey, despite consistently punching above his weight, and playing with older cricketers during his formative years.
“From a young age I played a lot of cricket that was a little bit above my age groups,” says Devon. “I played my first club team while I was still at school, and it was for Old Edwardians. I was exposed to playing with all these older blokes.”
Of course, this did not happen because he was a prodigy or was exceptionally talented in any way. He was just a hard-working youngster who happened to get these opportunities. And yet, now, years later, it was looking as if he was on his way out of the sport without reaching the summit.
If he settled, his parents’ sacrifices would be flushed down the drain. His own sacrifices would have been for nothing. The mountains of plates that he had washed in return for his friend, then Dolphins teammate, Tabraiz Shamsi to throw to him in the nets after practice, it would have been for nothing.
“Shamsi and I roomed together in Durban, and we also carpooled to and from practice when we were at Dolphins. I would ask him to stay longer and throw to me in the nets. Those were good times,” Devon smiles. “I can’t wait to play against him soon.”
And if he wasn’t going to settle, then he had to do something.
So, he decided to move. In March 2017, he played his last innings as a South African cricketer in a match between Gauteng and Boland. In an ironic twist of fate, as if a burden had been freed from his shoulders, it was then that he scored his highest First Class score of 203 not out.
And 5 months later, after selling all of the worldly possessions that he could not bring with him to New Zealand, he found himself wondering if they were going to land in the ocean as the plane approached Auckland.
“There wasn't much land, and there was a lot of sea,” Devon Conway laughs. “And after we landed, I remember thinking, ‘This is absolutely beautiful.’"
This picturesque place was Devon Conway’s new home.
“I was pretty nervous, I must admit,” he says, speaking of his first day in New Zealand. “I didn't know what we were in for. But it was also very exciting on the other end, so yeah, it was just a nice fresh start.”
And as he was to find out soon enough what his new life was going to be. Life in New Zealand was such a contrast to what he had grown up with in Johannesburg.
“It's a very relaxed culture here in New Zealand,” he says of his new home. “You know, it's very much an island vibe where, you know, people are just sort of easygoing. Whereas growing up in Johannesburg, you know, it's the real hustle and bustle of city life, you know, you just want to get your things done.”
He also soon found out that his new life was in no way an upgrade to his life in South Africa. For the first six months, he lived in a ‘cute’ little one-bed apartment in Wellington, before he moved in with his club cricket coach for two years. His contract with Victoria University Cricket Club did not pay a lot.
“Throughout the week I filled up my time with coaching. I think, close to 14 to 18 hours per week, coaching primary schools,” says Devon, who travelled a lot around Wellington to fulfil his coaching duties at the time. “I did that to buffer my salary which I was receiving, because it wasn't a big amount. So, I had to do that on the side to try and work my way, and support my better half, and get through life in New Zealand during the early stages.”
Just as well that Devon listened to one of his mates in 2010, who talked him into earning coaching credentials during his time at the Lions Academy. Gordon Parsons, who was with the Lions at the time, was running a program to help players earn coaching certificates, and he extended it to the academy players too.
“If any of you guys want to jump on the level two coaching clinic. You're more than welcome to,” Parsons had invited them.
But, Devon was reluctant, “I sort of thought, ‘Nah, I actually don't really feel like I'm doing it.’ Because, I wasn't really keen on reading books and studying and learning. I just wanted to be practical and just go out there and train and stuff.”
“And then one of my mates to me, I couldn't remember who it was,” he recalls, “it might have been Temba Bavuma, I'm not sure, he might've said to me, ‘I think this is probably one of those things we should actually do, because then it's done and then you've always got it for you. And, you never know when you're gonna use it down, down the line and it might become something worthwhile.’"
The added workload of coaching, which he did not have to shoulder while he was playing back in South Africa, seemed to have no adverse effect on his game. In fact, he was thriving. Part of the reason was that he found that coaching youngsters helped him with his own understanding of the fundamentals of the game.
“You sometimes forget some of the very basics of what actually makes you the player who you are, because you're so wound up in your own mind about trying to tackle different other aspects of the game,” Devon Conway explains. “Sometimes you can forget about the absolute basics. So when you dial it back so much, when you're trying to explain to a kid - how to catch the ball or how to hit the ball - you start reiterating the fundamentals that are actually very key to your success as a player and the way that you should be playing cricket. So that's the thing I really enjoy the most about coaching.”
The other reason for Devon Conway’s transformation was the environment.
It reminds me of something that biologist Edward O. Wilson said about the arrowleaf plant. The arrowleaf plant, when it grows on land, produces an elephant-ear leaf that is shaped like arrowheads. In shallow water or a pond, it produces leaves similar to lily pads. Underwater its leaves are long seaweedy ribbons, similar to eelgrass. Something in the environment awakens something in the plant, while at the same time inhibiting certain things about it. It is only by putting it in the right environment that you can get the best version of what you are looking for.
For Devon Conway, the best environment for his development as a cricketer was New Zealand.
“In New Zealand, no one knew me, there were no expectations,” Devon says. “I had nothing to prove other than just to go out and enjoy myself and play with no regrets. I played with a lot more freedom and I didn’t have to think, ‘Okay, right. I have to go out and prove to people that I can play.’ And that allowed me to just play with that freedom and, and just go out, enjoy myself and not put too much pressure and expectation on myself.”
Enjoying the game allowed him to play better. He was no longer held back by a fear of failure. Finally, for the first time in his professional career, he found himself able to live the advice that Hashim Amla gave him during his spell with the Dolphins.
“As a batter, you need to make peace with failure, because you are going to fail more than you succeed, especially in this line of work,” Amla had told the young Devon Conway. “So you have to accept that as a part of the game. That's what that's going to be. You're not going to walk out there and score hundreds every time you go out to bat. If you come to terms with that, that just alleviates a lot of pressure and expectation that you put on yourself.”
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It is a mindset that he had found very difficult to espouse when he played in South Africa, where he found himself putting a lot of pressure on himself. His game was weighed by the fact that he constantly felt that he needed to do well and score runs to ensure that he got picked for the next game. The burden of expectation drove him to try and be someone whom he wasn't. For the most part, he felt as if he was being asked to run with buckets of cement attached to his feet.
Cricket ceased to be fun, it became a soul-crushing, tedious exercise of managing perceptions. In South Africa, he found himself falling out of love with the sport he loved so much.
“I think that's one of the biggest things for me, enjoying the game,” he says. “I try and see if I can keep improving and keep that enjoyment factor as much as possible. I feel like, if I'm not ever improving as a player, then I'll probably lose that fire in my belly to keep playing.”
Those are the two things that he rediscovered when he joined Victoria University Cricket Club. Each time he walked out to play, Devon Conway just expressed himself - whether it was at batting, fielding or occasionally keeping wickets. He stayed true to who he was. And that’s how he caught the attention of Bruce Edgar at Wellington Firebirds.
From there, there was no looking back.
It’s late August 2021, and the New Zealand winter is retreating. Devon Conway is still a bit careful with his left hand. He hasn’t played cricket in a while, but he is sure he will be back in the nets soon.
“I can’t really hold the bat properly,” he says. “But, I am almost there.”
The injury, which he sustained while playing for Southern Brave in the Hundred, has kept him out of action for a while. And during his time out he has had time to do some of his favourite things, spend time with his fiancé, and play some golf - a bit gingerly. Devon Conway is a bit of a keen golfer. He has also been taking long walks in the New Zealand countryside and taking lots of photographs of the scenery.
“A couple of years back, I thought about maybe taking up photography or something that, but I never got around to it,” he says as a way to let me know that he is not very good at photography and that it’s just his way of documenting the beautiful moments in his life, moments that you can’t relive.
The other thing that the time away from the game has allowed him is time to think about his journey as a cricketer.
“I'm pretty grateful that I got the opportunity to play international cricket at 28, 29, when I made my debut,” he says. “I am actually pretty grateful that I only got exposed to the international stage at that age, because I feel like the space I was in as a younger player, if I got exposed to playing at the international level - which you never know what would have happened - but I certainly feel like I hadn't learned my craft fully. I hadn't found my process and the way I wanted to play the game. And, obviously, that would have allowed self- doubt to creep in.”
His injury has also afforded him the opportunity to really appreciate what he achieved on his Test debut. Following his debut, Devon Conway didn’t really have the opportunity to take in what had happened. So much was going on around him, with back-to-back matches, the second Test was only a couple of days after the first one. At that time, he was literally running on adrenaline - a result of the excitement over his debut, energy drinks and protein shakes that he guzzled.
After the Test series, Devon had to make preparations and join his The Hundred franchise.
Everything had been a blur, and he hadn’t found the time to really relive and appreciate his century, which came after 60.2 overs off the bowling of Ollie Robinson. Or the sight of Neil Wagner at the non-striker’s end visibly willing, with every muscle of his body, Devon’s shot to go over the ropes for a six after 121.6 overs. Wagner even audibly implored, urged, the ball, ‘go ball, go ball.’ At the expense of Mark Wood, Conway reached 200 runs in style, with a 6.
“It's only just sort of recently sunk in just now,” he confesses, “over the last couple of months, in the period when I took a bit of a break from cricket. And, yeah, it's allowed me to have that opportunity to reflect and actually appreciate what happened, not only on my debut, but everything that unfolded in England.”
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