Conway: 'Great to be back in this environment'

Devon Conway has described being back in New Zealand's T20I side as "great" after last playing for them at the T20 World Cup more than a year ago. Conway has since turned down a central contract and was initially omitted from the touring group to Zimbabwe but Finn Allen's foot injury opened the door for his return and he is relishing the chance to represent the country again.

"It's great to be back in this environment. It's been a while, so just getting the call-up to come back into the squad is fantastic," he said at the post-match press conference. "Obviously Finn Allen's injury is unfortunate but for me it's nice to get that opportunity to be with the squad again and see a couple of faces who I haven't seen in a long period of time. And it was nice to contribute today to the win."

Conway's 59 not out and the half-century stands he shared in with Rachin Ravindra and Daryl Mitchell helped New Zealand cruise to an eight-wicket win over Zimbabwe and to the top of the tri-series points table. Though he top-scored, it was not until the latter part of his innings that he looked comfortable after several top-edges off short balls from Zimbabwe's seamers. Conway was dropped on 1 when he edged a back-of-a-length delivery from Richard Ngavara to Blessing Muzarabani at short third and then miscued two pull shots, which fell safely.

"There was a lot of steep bounce in the surface, which was a little bit unexpected, but we adjusted and thankfully we only had to chase 121 and managed to get across the line," he said. "With the new ball, especially their left-armer [Ngarava] was a massive challenge for us as batters. They bashed that wicket really hard and got a lot of steep bounce out of it, so it made it pretty hard for us batters early."

This match was being played on a fresh pitch after two previous fixtures earlier in the week, where the ball seemed to stick in the wicket. There are still four more round-robin games to be played before the final, which New Zealand will be confident of appearing in after winning their first two matches. They will next play South Africa on Tuesday, where Conway will be wary of Kwena Maphaka, also left-arm, against whom he top-edged in New Zealand's opening match on Thursday.

This is Conway's first experience of working under new coach Rob Walter, who gave up the white-ball job with South Africa to take on the all-format role for New Zealand. Walter will be in charge of New Zealand for three years, which includes the next T20 and ODI World Cups. While Conway has not indicated if he would like to be considered for those tournaments, he has enjoyed working with Walter so far.

"It's just been a couple of days we've been with him but his positive mindset around T20 cricket has been nice and clear for us batters," Conway said. "He's brought positive energy and a slightly new way of thinking so it's nice to have him on board and experimenting as to how he operates as the head coach."