The love story of left-handed batsmen and Lord's continues. After a fantastic white-ball year with New Zealand, Devon Conway has repaid the faith shown in him by the team management and scored a well-compiled century on Test debut at Lord’s against England.
He brought up his three-figure with a flick of the wrist for four off Ollie Robinson and became the 12th New Zealand batsman to score a century on Test debut.
He was picked ahead of Tom Blundell to open the batting alongside Tom Latham and he looked confident and measured from the word go. He held his composure although wickets fell at regular intervals at the other end as an-all pace England bowling attack kept chipping away with big wickets of Tom Latham, Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor
At the start, New Zealand skipper Williamson won the toss and elected to bat first on a sunny day in London. In, what a Test of discipline for the host nation, the pace quartet of the English team had to work hard to eke out three big scalps from the Kiwi side. Conway too was tested in the initial overs by James Anderson and Stuart Broad, who kept their lengths very full to make use of whatever movement they could find in the air. Once Conway negotiated the same, managing to survive a couple of inside edges, he was thrown into a duel again Mark Wood and his express pace.
Consistently bowling at a pace of 150 kilometres per hour, Wood copped Conway only a couple of occasions but managed to survive. The left-hander grew increasingly confident in his stride in the lunch session and played as the primary aggressor in the batting line-up, hovering around a strike rate of 50 runs per 100 balls. He looked in a hurry after reaching his 90 and hit two boundaries to get to his hundred.
Conway’s success on Test debut augurs well for New Zealand in the series and the tour going forward to the ICC World Test Championship as Blackcaps have found a perfect partner for Latham’s resilience in Conway’s flair and style.