The Plunket Shield has been wrapped up, Wellington Firebirds do the champions thing and Devon Conway finishes the 2019/20 summer 1st in runs across all three domestic formats. It was around this time last year that I was writing about Conway being an all-format monster with the willow, after Conway finished 1st in Plunket Shield and Super Smash runs, while being 5th in Ford Trophy runs and I celebrated that as a rather tremendous achievement for the kiwi-African.

Nek summer, 1st across all three formats and somehow Conway went not just a step further - Conway blasted off the domestic run-scoring charts. This summer featured a bunch of intriguing batsmen at the top of the Plunket Shield rankings for batsmen and I'm going to touch on the best of the best, featuring an exciting younger presence and matua Greg Hay who salvaged his Plunket Shield season with an exceptional second stanza.

Conway's the guy though and he finishes this season with 701 runs @ 87.62avg/69.06sr via a century (327*) and three half-centuries. This is the second season in a row that Conway has averaged 80+ in First Class cricket and in the three seasons since Conway's arrival to Mother Aotearoa, Conway has played 17 games, batted in 30inns with four centuries and five half-centuries.

Straight up, I've written about Conway so much that it's hard to slide in with a different nuance or angle. I decided to peep how Conway's numbers in South Africa and found that Conway scored a century in all but one season of FC cricket in South Africa in which he played more than five games (2009/10-2016/17), that's seven of eight seasons in which Conway scored a century. Now, Conway is on a stretch of nine consecutive FC seasons in which he has passed the century mark at least once.

Thanks to playing almost double the number of FC games in South Africa per season than he has in Aotearoa, Conway's averages in South Africa were a bit lower than the crazy numbers since arriving in Aotearoa. Conway averaged 50+ in three of eight seasons, settling between 30-45avg for most his career and Conway's tenure in South Africa culminated in a 2016/17 campaign in which he averaged 98.55 via four centuries, three half-centuries in nine games.

Funnily enough, that was Conway's last season in South African before coming to Aotearoa and I'll offer a different layer to this funk; Conway has averaged 60+ in four of his last five seasons in South Africa and Aotearoa. These kinda numbers aren't the norm, perhaps someone has a big season or two, yet Conway has found a groove where he's jacking up hefty numbers consistently and remember that those FC numbers come with Conway's brilliance across all formats in Aotearoa.

This obviously has Conway in the Blackcaps picture and creates a nifty ol' scenario for kiwi cricket fans as I imagine those tapped into all kiwi cricket matters will be debating how to fit Conway into the Blackcaps. Right here, right now, I'm just dwelling in appreciation for Conway and what he offers cricket in Aotearoa. It feels like we have been in that beautiful little patch of time where one is witnessing the come up of a supreme craftsman, before it blows up for everyone to see and thus, it's been a privilege to document Conway's journey through the neglected, glorious underground of kiwi sport.

Conway's only 28-years-old as well, so he is fairly young and could perhaps be viewed as the leader of the Henry Cooper (ND), Mark Chapman (Auckland), Rachin Ravindra (Wellington), Ken McClure (Cant) and Will Young (CD) group. This group feels like the wave of batsmen who are at various stages of putting pressure on Blackcap and while there are other notable batsmen that I'll touch on below, this is the group that kiwi cricket fans need to know about.

Henry Cooper

26yrs, 2nd, 10inns, 499 runs @ 49.90avg, 3 x 100.

FC career: 39.11avg.

Mark Chapman

25yrs, 5th, 7inns, 432 runs @ 61.71avg, 2 x 100, 1 x 50.

FC career: 41.20avg.

Rachin Ravindra

20yrs, 8th, 9inns, 414 runs @ 59.14avg, 1 x 100, 3 x 50.

FC career: 38.91avg.

Ken McClure

25yrs, 11th, 5inns, 314 runs 62.80avg, 1 x 100, 2 x 50.

FC career: 38.58avg.

Will Young

27yrs, 23rd, 251 runs @ 62.75avg, 1 x 100, 1 x 50.

FC career: 42.36avg.

What's impressive here is that all these lads are spread across Aotearoa, with the only team not represented in that group above being Otago Volts. The Volts do have impressive young-ish batsmen in Dean Foxcroft and Nick Kelly, neither was overly dominant in the Plunket Shield this season though and will be looking to level up from this solid foundation. The best batsmen for Otago were all-rounders Michael Rippon and Nathan Smith, which is a balance of these two being talented cricketers who contribute with bat and ball vs a lack of top-order runs in the Volts batting group.

The group of Greg Hay (CD), Joe Carter (CD), Dane Cleaver (CD) and Brad Schmulian (CD) also impressed with their run-scoring this season. These lads aren't quite as close to the Blackcaps as I'd consider the other group to be, although I've consistently thrown Dane Cleaver up as someone who can't be slept on in the Aotearoa wicket-keeper/batsman conversation.

Personally, I'd still love to see Hay get a fill in role for the Blackcaps Test team if an opener is unavailable for whatever reason. The issue now is that Tom Blundell and Tom Latham are backed up by Jeet Raval, leaving Hay further down the pecking order. If you want to get into the nitty gritty of this imaginary scenario, Raval averaged 19.55 in 9inns this season and Raval has not scored a FC century in three of his last four seasons. With that in mind, if the Blackcaps needed a Test opener for one or two Tests, I'd still have Hay is my geezer to chuck in there.

Last season, Hay finished 2nd in Plunket Shield runs behind Conway and this is the third consecutive season in which Hay has averaged 40+. Since making his debut in 2006/7, Hay has averaged 40+ in six of his 10 seasons played, scoring a century in all but one of those seasons.

Hay's only season without a century was this season and yet Hay scored five consecutive 50+ scores in the last three games to make up for that. This saw Hay finish 3rd in runs, with 454 runs @ 41.27avg and Hay continues to average 40+ in FC and List-A cricket.

Along with Chapmam, Carter scored two centuries in the one game to finished 4th in runs with 452 runs @ 45.20avg. Averaging 30.63 in FC cricket, Carter needs to pile up plenty more runs with greater consistency to move up a level, however this is another impressive Plunket Shield campaign for Carter after averaging 42.30 last season via a century and three half-centuries.

Having scored 201 in his first outing of the Plunket Shield's second stanza, Cleaver didn't score over 40 in the next 5inns which put a lid on his low key impressive campaign. Cleaver scored 196 and 53 in tour games vs India A and this came after Cleaver showed his hitting prowess in the Super Smash with 27.80avg/139sr as well as a Ford Trophy campaign in which he averaged 51.33/90.58sr; high average with no not-out innings.

Cleaver's Plunket Shield finished with him averaging 38.45, while in FC cricket overall (including those tour games etc), Cleaver averaged 51.69 and this is the third consecutive FC season in which Cleaver has averaged 40+. In fact, Cleaver has averaged 40+ in five of his seven FC seasons. Overall, Cleaver's career average sits at 41.79 and that's better than Tim Seifert (36.29avg), Tom Blundell (37.51avg), BJ Watling (39.25avg) and not quite at Tom Latham's level (43.09avg).

I'll finish with the newly crowned Underground King Brad Schmulian, who scored 418 runs 2 52.25avg via five half-centuries in 10inns. That put Schmulian 7th in Plunket Shield runs, one spot behind Cleaver and Schmulian's FC average is a smidge behind Cleaver's as Schmulian's averaging 41.60 in FC cricket.

Schmulain also made his Ford Trophy debut this summer, scoring 177 runs @ 59avg with two not-outs bolstering his average. This gives Schmulian a crazy career record of 41.60avg in FC cricket and 59avg in List-A cricket, while also averaging 28.66 with the ball in FC cricket. Given that Schmulian pops up everywhere in the Stags batting line up depending on the availability of more favoured batsmen, Schmulian’s ability to score runs in any scenario and do so fairly consistently is worthy of Underground King status.

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Peace and love 27.