Nick Greenwood and Jesse Tashkoff have traversed contrasting paths to the Wellington team.
Greenwood, a batting allrounder, was born in Jersey before his family emigrated to New Zealand when he was two years old. Now 24, he has already had a taste of international cricket with Jersey, his birth island, and aspires to become a Black Cap in the future.
Tashkoff, a year younger than Greenwood, is a left-arm fingerspinner who was born and brought up in Lower Hutt in Wellington. Tashkoff's leadership skills were recognised early when he was appointed New Zealand Under-19s' captain for the World Cup in South Africa in 2020. Having grown up idolising Daniel Vettori and admiring Mitchell Santner, Tashkoff also dreams of playing for New Zealand.
In March earlier this year, Greenwood and Tashkoff won the 2023-24 Plunket Shield with Wellington. Four months later, their paths crossed again in Chennai, where the pair spent the New Zealand winter at the Super Kings Academy (SKA), preparing for the new domestic season, which will kick off with the Ford Trophy on October 20.
"Obviously coming from New Zealand, the conditions are a lot different to what they're like over here," Tashkoff says. "So it's nice to come over here and learn different parts of our game that we might not be able to experience back home just with the different pitch conditions and weather. So there are a lot of takeaways that we can grab from our training over here and implement it into our games back home. That's our main goal coming into such trips here."
"The change of pace is the biggest and easiest way to adjust but I've been also working on the carrom ball, the slider and the arm ball as well. Just need to get more confidence in the nets practicing it before I can bring the carrom ball into a game this season" Jesse Tashkoff
For Greenwood and Tashkoff, it was also an opportunity to reconnect with Sriram Krishnamurthy, their former Wellington Under-19s coach, who is now the head coach at the SKA in Chennai. "We might not get these exact wickets back in New Zealand, but like Sri has been telling us, the basics of playing spin, it's still the basics he's trying to instil in, no matter the wicket," Greenwood says. "There's a lot of things you can take out of here like your height at the crease - stay nice and low - and keeping side-on and picking the ball out of the hand. All these things you try to pick up and take it into your game in Wellington even though it might not spin as much there."
During the winter, Greenwood had also helped Jersey win the T20 World Cup Sub-Regional Europe Qualifier in Krefeld before picking up his maiden five-wicket haul in List A cricket in the 50-over challenge league for Jersey in Nairobi.
It was actually a chance conversation during a club game in Lancashire in 2019 that put Greenwood on the radar of the Jersey cricket team.
"Wellington had set me up to play some cricket in the UK and I was playing for a club over there," Greenwood recalls. "One of the people there [at the club] went to university there with one of Jersey's players - Ben Stevens - and I got a contact with the coach [Neil MacRae] and a couple of days later had a net session and then, a month later, I was in Abu Dhabi and Dubai playing T20 qualifiers. So it was a pretty cool experience and I'm grateful that they gave me the opportunity [to play international cricket]. We have played some good cricket over the years, but we have kind of slid back to the regional qualifier now. Hopefully, we can keep up with the likes of Ireland, Scotland, Netherlands and stay in touch with that qualifying group."
With Devon Conway knocking back a central contract to become a freelancer and Rachin Ravindra set to be away on international duty for most of the domestic season, Greenwood is likely to open the batting with Tim Robinson - who is fresh off his maiden Caribbean Premier League stint with Guyana Amazon Warriors - in the upcoming domestic season. But having been exposed to different conditions around the world, he is open to batting at any position for Wellington.
"I haven't done heaps of it [batting in the middle order] last season when Dev and Rach didn't play much," Greenwood says. "When guys come back, it's also an opportunity to learn from them but I like to believe my game hasn't changed too much. Yes, batting in the powerplay is a bit different, but I'm comfortable playing against spin in that role as well. It's a thing to my game as well - keep developing it and there's nothing to stop me saying I can't bat there [middle order] or bat at the top. Ready to bat anywhere."
Inspired by Liam Livingstone, Greenwood is also working on adding legspin to his regular offspin in his quest to counter right-handers who try to line him up.
As for Tashkoff, who is Wellington's second spinner behind Peter Younghusband, he has also been working behind the scenes to expand his repertoire.
"The change of pace is the biggest and easiest way to adjust but I've been also working on the carrom ball, the slider and the arm ball as well," Tashkoff says. "Just need to get more confidence in the nets practicing it before I can bring the carrom ball into a game this season. It's something I've been working on for a while but still not at a stage where I can confidently bring it into a game yet. I've watched a lot of footage and seen how bowlers release it, talking to coaches and getting ideas on what's the best technique. It's pretty much trial and error for me to find out what works the best for me."
The common goal for both Greenwood and Tashkoff now is to help Wellington win more titles this domestic season.
"Last season, we had some team success and winning the Plunket Shield was awesome to experience," Greenwood says. "There were some new players in the team that hadn't won before, which was awesome again. We'll continue to strive for team success, which is a good way to promote yourself to become a better player as well. So we will definitely look to compete for more trophies with Wellington."