Ramping up the cricket action

Test team debutant teenager Sam Konstas has given cricket fans something to celebrate that a new generation is ready to take the long form of the game headfirst into the future.

Sixty runs from 65 balls in quick clip from the opening is a national Test career start to remember. It rattled the Indian opponents, causing team legend Virat Kohli to lose both his composure and his manners.

It was also a welcome relief for Australian cricket fans and selectors that a worthy replacement for opener David Warner had finally taken the crease.

Konstas’s unorthodox approach will give tragics plenty to debate. Does the ramp shot really belong in Test stroke play? Or has that battle been won or lost depending on your point of view? No doubt it was a fitting way for Konstas to declare his purpose on the biggest stage of all at the MCG.

Konstas said his intention before the game had been to play “good cricket shots”. But he saw the opportunity to put the heat back on bowler Jasprit Bumrah with an unconventional choice of stroke.

It demonstrates Konstas’s capacity to think under pressure and not be trapped by convention.

Audacious, youthful exuberance is just what the game needs. A new generation has arrived.