Devon Conway, the prolific New Zealand batter, had developed a Chennai connection before being roped in by CSK at the IPL mega auction.
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New Zealand batter Devon Conway started his Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 campaign for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) soon after his marriage. He has added mettle to the under-fire CSK batting line-up with the scores of 85 not out and 56 in his last two out of three appearances for the franchise at top of the order. He has, so far, looked like an ideal replacement for former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis as an opener.
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Conway was bought by CSK ahead of IPL mega auction but he had developed an interesting connection with the Indian city in 2017. The Johannesburg-born batter had shifted to Wellington from South Africa in 2017 to try and make a cricket career in New Zealand. It was at that time that he met Sriram Krishnamurthy, a former first-division cricketer with India Cements, who is now batting coach of Northern Districts.
“In a lot of sense, I know what it feels like to move to a certain place, especially New Zealand,” Sriram told the CSK website. “The nervousness that you have when you move from one country to another, it takes time to settle in,” added the former cricketer, who himself moved from Chennai to the UK and then to Australia before eventually settling down in New Zealand in 2015, coaching several sides there.
“The first time I came across Devon Conway was in the winter of 2017, around April or May. I heard about him through Cricket Wellington’s high-performance General Manager Robbie Kerr. The previous summer, I had facilitated for one other South African to come to New Zealand so Kerr thought I’d be ideal to guide Devon.
“We went through a few phone calls outlining what he could be in for when he’s moving to New Zealand, not just from a cricketing perspective but from life perspective as well. Because at the end of the day, he had to make a well-informed decision. Moving from South Africa to New Zealand for good with the unknown of whether he would realise his dream of becoming an International cricketer – it was a big decision. I had to give him as much information as possible.”
Conway, later, made his debut in 2020 and flourished in the initial matches for the national team across formats to grab some eyeballs. He averages a remarkable 63.91 in the Tests, 75 in One-Day Internationals (ODIs) and 50.16 in the Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is). And his first Chennai connection Sriram, who observed him closely in his formative years, is not surprised with it his brilliance but he was rather surprised to see him being picked up for CSK.
“I was surprised he got picked by the Chennai Super Kings. I knew he was going to be picked, that was definitely a no brainer for the sort of player he turned out to be in International cricket over the last 12 months. I’ve had scouts from other franchises ask me about Devon. So I knew he would get picked. I was pleasantly surprised that he was picked by CSK!”
