Devon Conway\u00a0and\u00a0Blair Tickner\u00a0have replaced Adi Ashok and Muhammad Abbas in\u00a0New Zealand’s pool of 20 centrally contracted players for 2026-27, New Zealand Cricket announced on Wednesday.\u00a0Michael Bracewell\u00a0and\u00a0Mark Chapman\u00a0“both requested not to be ranked in Test cricket and remain on the central contract list as white-ball specialists”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kane Williamson, meanwhile, has\u00a0retired from international cricket\u00a0– he had been on a casual contract for a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Tickner earned his contract with solid performances across formats over the past few months, Conway comes back into the central list after playing for two years on a casual contract. He has made himself available for all international fixtures during the upcoming contracting period (August 1, 2026 to July 31, 2027).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tickner has claimed four or more wickets in five of his last eight innings in international cricket, and picked up his first international five-wicket haul last month against Ireland in the one-off Test in Stormont.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking to reporters after the news became public, Tickner said, “It’s been a while, so it was awesome news to hear. I’ve been working towards it. So, no, it was just a cool experience, I guess, for me and the family to be back on the list after a few years off. It’s obviously awesome to be around the environment and then to feel like you’re part of the cog going forward is always special.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I just wanted to play more for New Zealand and put performances in for the team and whatever came of it, came of it. And luckily enough, you know, the contract’s come my way. But it’s just, like I said, awesome to be a part of the team going forward.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Head coach\u00a0Rob Walter\u00a0said of Tickner: “Blair has worked extremely hard over the past few years and added new levels to his game. He’s an excellent team man and has stepped into various roles for the side over the past few months and excelled in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s important we continue to nurture that depth in our bowling stocks, especially with a heavy diet of red-ball cricket over the next 12 months, so to have Blair contracted full-time will help maintain that depth.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 34-year-old Conway, Walter said, “Devon has been a regular member of the side in all three formats for some time now, even whilst on a casual contract, so it’s great to have a player of his calibre back on the central contract list, especially with the amount of exciting cricket coming up.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zak Foulkes\u00a0and\u00a0Mitchell Hay\u00a0have retained their contracts after being included for the first time last year and featuring for New Zealand across all three formats in the past 12 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Discussions around casual contracts are underway, NZC said, and “an announcement is expected in the coming weeks”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tom Blundell, Michael Bracewell, Mark Chapman, Devon Conway, Jacob Duffy, Zak Foulkes, Mitchell Hay, Matt Henry, Kyle Jamieson, Tom Latham, Daryl Mitchell, Henry Nicholls, Will O’Rourke, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Mitchell Santner, Ben Sears, Nathan Smith, Blair Tickner, Will Young.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Devon Conway\u00a0and\u00a0Blair Tickner\u00a0have replaced Adi Ashok and Muhammad Abbas in\u00a0New Zealand’s pool of 20 centrally contracted players for 2026-27, New Zealand Cricket announced on Wednesday.\u00a0Michael Bracewell\u00a0and\u00a0Mark Chapman\u00a0“both requested not to be ranked in Test cricket and remain on the central contract list as white-ball specialists”. Kane Williamson, meanwhile, has\u00a0retired from international cricket\u00a0– he had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-417296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417297,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417296\/revisions\/417297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}