New Zealand Reach 361-4 on Day One of Third Test
Devon Conway acknowledges his "struggles" despite scoring 157
When New Zealand last played at Trent Bridge, Tim Southee was part of their playing XI and Luke Ronchi was in their dressing room. They batted first, posting 318 for four on the opening day, eventually scoring 553 in their first innings but ended up losing the match. Four years later, with eight players from the 2022 squad still present, New Zealand concluded the opening day on 361 for four, though a familiar, unfavorable memory may temper their satisfaction.
“There’ll probably be a few guys in the New Zealand changing room with that in the back of their minds. It’s always there in the memory bank,”
said Southee, who is now England’s bowling coach.
“In reality it’s a very different team compared to 2022, it’s different cricket, it’s a different surface,”added Ronchi, who remains New Zealand’s batting coach.
“That hasn’t really come into it.”
The four wickets that fell all occurred in the last 12 overs of the day, after New Zealand had reached 317 without loss. Rachin Ravindra and Henry Nicholls were dismissed on the final two deliveries before stumps.
“It’s a fantastic score, but there’s just that clinical nature of how you’d really like to finish off the day. If you want to be really picky, you look at those sorts of things,”Ronchi remarked.
“But it’s a better position than we’ve been at in other matches of this series. If you’re given that score at the start of the day, there wouldn’t be a single person that will say: ‘No, we want more than that.’”
In his previous five innings on this tour, including the first two in Ireland, Devon Conway had amassed only 66 runs at an average of 13.20 and was eager for improvement. He also spent considerable time reflecting during his flight home for the birth of his second child between the first two Tests.
“I felt a little out of sorts at times,”he admitted.
“I’ve been struggling with my pre-movement. I was trying out keeping my back foot still, as I was getting it in too late.”
Conway experimented with a modified technique, nearly eliminating his trigger movement on Thursday. However, he did not favor this adjustment. After facing three balls, he reverted to his original method and proceeded to score 157 runs.
“He was just trying a few little things to work out his prelim and how it might work and how it might feel,”Ronchi explained.
“For the first few balls he was trying one thing and then I think he changed to another thing.
It’s just working on timings of how he wants to be set before a bowler lets go of the ball, just coming down to trusting how it goes and the timing of when he should be doing it. Today it worked out really well. You can really see a difference, and it makes it just that little bit easier to face blokes.”
