The former Australian captain and ICC Hall of Fame member Ricky Ponting believes that the emerging prodigy will not be able to last if he continues to play in the same manner as he did at the MCG. The world was not prepared to see Konstas go all guns blazing on debut before a sold-out crowd in the Boxing Day Test. He ramped for a towering six over the head of Rishabh Pant while tonking the first maximum off the world’s current best pacer, Jasprit Bumrah.
He continued in that vein to reach a predictably brisk 60(65) before the arm was raised in approval by Ravindra Jadeja when he was out leg before wicket.
The shoot-and-miss approach was a hit-and-miss for Konstas based on his subsequent performances. In the second innings, Bumrah pitched up a perfect inswinger to breach the gap between pad and bat to clean up Konstas.
Mohammed Siraj had set him up in the first innings, Prasidh Krishan in the second on an uncertain Sydney Test strip.
“I don’t think he can survive as a Test opening batsman playing like that all the time,” Ponting said on the ICC Review. “So he’ll learn a lot from the first couple of games that he played as a batsman, but just as an international sportsman as well, I think he’ll learn a lot.”
“He really enjoyed it at the MCG, tough but a big stage,” he added. “But that’s happened with young players too many times to mention: they come into the scene, really get everything overawed by it a little bit, and then a couple of games or a couple of series later just seem to work out who they are and who they need to be successful international players.”
Yet his unimpressive showing after the MCG folder filled those in charge with enough confidence to book a ticket for Sri Lanka for a two-match Test tour later this month.
Australia Squad: Steve Smith (c), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Travis Head (vc), Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Sam Konstas, Matt Kuhnemann, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Nathan McSweeney, Todd Murphy, Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster
