2021 Kiwi County Tour: Batsmen Tings (Conway The Machine)
England's T20 Blast will take a wee break as they now switch up to deliver their 'The Hundred' doosra, although we do have some of our kiwi cricketers sliding into County Championship antics during this phase. Devon Conway's going to be extremely busy over in England and as I'm not going to be paying any attention to what the kiwis do in The Hundred, this is a perfect time to celebrate the greatness of what Conway is currently up to.
Conway's domination of English cricket isn't low key. This is a dude who scoffed at Duke ball excuses to bang a double-hundy on Test debut at Lord's, who played a key role in the third consecutive Test series win over England and the first World Test Championship Final. Nothing about Conway's work prior to the England tour was low key either as Conway dominated all domestic formats before - you guessed it - dominating all Blackcaps cricket in Aotearoa last summer.
I do sense a bit of low key vibes around Conway's current work though. Many may have tapped out of cricket after the WTC and since then, Conway has casually put up scores of 5, 51*, 53, 81* and 45 in T20 Blast with an overall strike-rate of 126.34. That's all in alignment with Conway's T20 record of 45.72avg/129.50sr and Conway can literally be banked on to score around 45 runs with a strike-rate bumping 130.
Somerset have won six games. Conway has played five games and won four of them (4-1) , which can when packaged with Conway's run-scoring can be wrapped up fairly nicely as Conway having an impact of Somerset's winning fortunes. There is a fresh wrinkle to Conway the Machine as he scored 88 for Somerset in their first game of the County Championship's return and this is a bit tricky because the game is in action at the time of writing this. Here is a breakdown of Conway's time in England...
Tests vs England/India: 6inns, 379 runs @ 63.16avg/50sr, 1 x 200, 2 x 50.
T20 Blast: 5inns, 235 runs @ 78.33avg/126.88sr, 3 x 50.
County Championship: 1inns of 88.
Conway is quite simply doing everything he has done in Aotearoa, over in England.
After a hot start to T20 Blast, Finn Allen's last four scores are: 16, 2, 25, 5. Allen currently has 10 more runs than Conway in the T20 Blast and then we have Glenn Phillips who is one of two batsmen who has scored 400+ runs. Last time we checked in with G-Philly was when he had just slugged back to back scores of 94* and since then Phillips put up a 4 and 57; the latter knock came with 1w @ 10rpo.
Phillips had previously bowled in County Championship or 2nd 11 cricket and swapped into the wicket-keeping role for T20 Blast. Having not really bowled in any T20 Blast games, Phillips popped up to open the bowling and grabbed a stumping for his wicket before cracking that 57 @ 150sr.
Phillips has 421 runs in 9inns @ 70.16avg/165.09sr. That is considerably better than what Phillips did in the kiwi summer as he had 9inns of Super Smash with 156 runs @ 17.33avg and in 12inns of T20I cricket, Phillips had 366 runs @ 40.66avg; high average via 3 not-outs otherwise it's a century and one half-century in those 12inns.
Remember that Phillips is one of the most productive kiwis to ever play Caribbean Premier League with a 50+ score in all four of his CPL campaigns, averaging 35+ in the last three. Phillips only has three 50+ scores in the T20 Blast, yet he also has four scores between 35-50 and if Phillips is grooving along at 165sr then he's having an impact.
Colin de Grandhomme put up scores of 6 and 1 since our last check in and he is currently 48* for Hampshire in their County game vs Surrey (after day one). Fairly mellow knock for CDG as his strike-rate is 63.15 although that might change early in day two as Hampshire's 7 wickets down and de Grandhomme might start slugging.
Daryl Mitchell also slowed down after starting T20 Blast with scores of 29, 58 and 32. Mitchell has scores of 12 and 10 in his last two games. Middlesex start their County game tonight and Mitchell will likely lace up in the whites there. Jimmy Neesham's another who dipped in run-scoring with scores of 4 and 1 in his last two outings.
Luke Georgeson isn't playing in England, but following him in Ireland has be a fun wrinkle to all of the Kiwi County Tour antics. Georgeson's time with Northern Knights came to climax with the 50-over final in which Georgeson hit 128 @ 108.47sr batting #5 as Northern fell 10 runs short of an epic chase. Georgeson's century took Northern to 300/8 in pursuit of Munster Red's 309/4 and Georgeson did plenty of mahi after coming to the crease with Northern on 49/3 in the 9th over.
Georgeson then fell in the 49th over and Northern's tail-enders couldn't finish the job. Georgeson played five games with 317 runs @ 63.40avg/78.66sr (1 x 100, 2 x 50) and I continue to ponder what Georgeson might do this summer upon returning to Aotearoa. After making his Ford Trophy debut early in 2020, Georgeson debuted in the other two formats last summer and given Wellington's record of developing young talent, I'd suggest you tap into what Georgeson is doing.
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