Craddock: Sam Konstas treading a dangerous line that could win Australia series or inspire India
Circuit breaker and pot-stirrer extraordinaire, Sam Konstas is unlike anything Australian cricket has seen before. All eyes are on the teen tyro after his heated clash with Jasprit Bumrah.
Sam Konstas will need to be a very brave and talented batsman to continue his role as Australian cricket’s circuit breaker and pot-stirrer extraordinaire.
Konstas is new generation Australia.
All at once he is risky, cheeky, compelling, super confident yet somehow vulnerable. It’s box office entertainment. Enthralling fare.
The sight of Konstas skipping down the wicket and whipping the great Jasprit Bumrah through midwicket first ball sent the SCG into raptures.
Then he became involved in an exchange with Bumrah over Usman Khawaja trying to slow the game down in what may have been modern day equivalent of Dean Jones telling West Indian fast man Curtly Ambrose to take off his white wrist bands.
It fired Bumrah up.
One social media wag said after the game Konstas was able to do what coach Gautum Gambhir could not … unite a supposedly fractured Indian dressing room.
It was a funny quip but don’t laugh too much.
When the Indians took Khawaja’s wicket last ball of the day they were united in their joy at the breakthrough and extra jubilant at the sweet revenge their leader and inspiration Bumrah had gained over Konstas.
It spotlighted the line Konstas is treading between getting under India’s skin – like he did beautifully in Melbourne – and somehow not going so far he rouses their tiring minds and bodies.
Right now Konstas is a valuable weapon against India because his cheek irks and distracts them.
Some AFL fans are saying Konstas is to cricket what Jack Ginnivan is to the AFL – a prodigiously talented millennial who relishes injecting a bit of unconventional spice into a very conventional game.
In some ways Konstas reminds us of a young David Hookes who smacked English captain Tony Greig for five successive fours on debut in the Centenary Test in Melbourne in 1977.
When Greig had a verbal snipe at the youngster, Hookes, wet behind the ears though he was, replied “at least I am an Australian playing for Australia’’ as opposed to South African born Greig playing for England.
David Warner may have given selected cheek at times but Australia has seen nothing like Konstas, especially in a team where every other member is older than 30.
For all the changes in modern cricket the game at heart is still massively conservative and the sight of a young player giving cheek to a bona fide legend was always going to rock the game.
How will it end? Who knows?
But this much is certain – it’s going to be interesting to watch.
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