Stats: Wellington's Devon Conway scores 393 runs in the Plunket Shield match

Devon Conway produced a marathon effort in the Plunket Shield match during this week while representing the Wellington Firebirds team. Playing against the Canterbury team, the Firebirds found themselves three down for 20 runs. They were reduced to 54/4 in the opening session but Conway stabilized the innings. He added 129 runs for the 5th wicket along with Malcolm Nofal and a 173-run stand for the 6th wicket with Peter Younghusband.

The speciality of Conway’s knock has been the pace at which he scored those runs. He raised his century in 138 balls and in the next 44 balls, he went past the 150-run mark. The 28-year-old needed 51 and 56 balls respectively for his next 50-run milestones. Wellington ended the first day on 415/6 with Conway alone scoring 261 runs. These are the 3rd most number of runs scored by a player on the opening day’s play in New Zealand first-class cricket.

He raised his maiden triple century on the 2nd day morning as he shared a 159-run partnership for the 7th wicket with Jamie Gibson. Devon Conway remained unbeaten on 327 off 352 deliveries smashing 48 fours and five maximums. His knock helped the Wellington team to declare the innings at 525/7. Tom Latham responded with a double century as Canterbury brought down the deficit to 110 runs before declaring their innings. Conway top-scored for his team in the 2nd innings as well scoring 66 runs.

The Wellington Firebirds declared at 247/6 after batting 44.3 overs. Chasing 358 runs to win the game, the Canterbury team was bundled out for 313 despite no player even got to fifty. The record for the highest total not involving a fifty in the New Zealand first-class cricket is held by Canterbury only when they posted 330 against Central Districts in the 1960/61 season.

The fifty in the 2nd innings helped Conway to finish the match with an aggregate of 393 runs; the highest by any player in a first-class match on New Zealand soil. In this process, the Wellington No.3 broke the record set by Bert Sutcliffe with his 385-run knock for Otago in the 1952/53 season also against Canterbury. Devon Conway also became the first player from New Zealand to score a triple century and a fifty-plus score in the same first-class match. Only eight other players have achieved this feat to date.

(Stats as on November 1, 2019)