Sam Konstas fails again in West Indies as Ashes uncertainty deepens

The teenager’s Ashes audition has been a disaster. A glaring, ruinous, technical weakness — cricket’s worst-kept secret since Mitchell Starc started dating Alyssa Healy — has been exposed.

Sam Konstas is bowled by Shamar Joseph on day two against the West Indies at Barbados. Picture: AFP

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Perhaps Sam Konstas is a flash in the pan. Perhaps that’s the unfortunate truth of the matter. Perhaps his supernova first Test was a bigger fluke than Jason Gillespie’s 201. No offence to the popular and personable tailender who momentarily stood taller and more resolutely than the immutable nightwatchman in Rembrandt’s painting.

What Konstas would give for Gillespie’s forward defence. He burst onto the Test scene on Boxing Day with backyard trick shots, flicking balls into the neighbour’s garden, giving lip, grinning like he was on the cover of Mad magazine, dispatching balls over the roof, and beyond the flower pots, all so casually he might have been barefoot. He played up to an ­adoring MCG crowd like a self-­appointed rock star, mimicking Merv Hughes’ signature moves, which privately raised the ire and eyebrows of the Melbourne old boys who grumbled that he was yet to earn his stripes.

He scored a scintillating 60 against India but as if awaking from a dream, he stuffed around for scores of eight, 23 and 22 and was promptly sacked.

Konstas was unwanted and untrusted for two Tests against Sri Lanka. Untrusted and unwanted for the World Test Championship final. Offered an Ashes opening position via crucial auditions in the West Indies, he couldn’t have provided a worse impression.

We thought he was fearless; he has played scared. We assumed he would set a thrilling, positive tone; he has given Australia an anxious and uncertain vibe. Konstas’s contributions at Barbados have been two-thirds of sweet bugger-all, three and four – and he’s been lucky to kick on so far.

No pan has ever flashed as ­vibrantly as Konstas on Boxing Day. Now? The 19-year-old is firing blanks. Perhaps this is too much too soon for a teenager. The original flashes in the original pans were in misfiring muskets. Gun powder was ­ignited but no projectiles accompanied the flames. Some 500 years later, the modern equivalent is Konstas.

Where’d the bullets go?

He batted for nearly an hour on day two. That’s a decent audition over a substantial allotment of time. He faced a torturous 38 balls. His first was nearly chopped onto his stumps. Then he was dropped twice in three balls by a cordon using clanging cymbals for hands. He finally ended the painful viewing by clunking an inside edge onto his woodwork. Perhaps he’s simply not yet ready for Test cricket. Perhaps this won’t pan out as expected for the Ashes.

Australia’s first innings found a total only darts players would celebrate. One-hundred-and-eeeightyyy. The Windies responded with 190 before Konstas showed he’s paralysed by uncertainty about his role and persona. His glaring, ruinous, technical weakness has been the worst-kept secret in cricket since Mitchell Starc started dating Alyssa Healy. Now it’s out in broad daylight. He’s caught between a rock and a hard place, between orthodoxy and creativity, between aggression and wonky defence. He would’ve been better off falling for the golden duck. Nothing we saw engendered confidence in the young lad.

Konstas tries a ramp shot during his Test debut on Boxing Day. Picture: Michael Klein

Nearly bowled first ball, dropped twice, then out … well-known weaknesses like Konstas’s can kill a career. When frailties ­become common knowledge, an Achilles heel becomes larger than life. Assumes a life of its own. Michael Bevan was actually quite good against short balls. Then he fell to a few and gained a reputation. Bevan can’t play the short ball! He felt pressured to prove himself against short balls, which harmed his effectiveness against the short ball, and then it became true – Bevan ended up with a weakness against the short ball.

Outswinger, outswinger, outswinger, inswinger. It’s like putting cake in front of a fat kid. Stuff it, you know Konstas will likely succumb. He really is a bundle of talent, but how to unwrap it? He went crazy in his first Test innings, so wildly creative and daring that Rembrandt himself would have been proud, but since then he’s grafted and flopped. He was fast-tracked into the Test XI because of Dave Warner’s retirement and the shambolic nature of Australia’s top-order, and he’s trying to learn on the job, but for now he’s in over his head. Stats do not lie and his average after six innings is 20.

“We’re not sure what to expect,” Australia coach Andrew McDonald said before the Windies series. “He lit up the Boxing Day Test with some entertaining cricket but I think we’ll see some more traditional cricket. He was really amped up at the MCG and brought out some shots we weren’t expecting that early. He’s an exciting player.”

Perhaps the crackerjack MCG debut was the exception to the rule. An out-of-body experience he cannot replicate. Marnus Labuschagne was sacked for hesitancy and an unwillingness to take the game on. Konstas was expected to lift the tempo in the grand tradition of high-voltage Australian openers like Warner and Michael Slater, throwing the kitchen sink and all the utensils at opposition leather-flingers, getting the side off to a flyer. Instead, he was a sitting duck in Barbados, taking tentative half-steps forward in defence, then charging down the pitch in exasperation, then doing a bit of both in confusion, until his departure felt inevitable … and a relief.

Sam Konstas in the nets at the Galle International Cricket Stadium in Sri Lanka in January. Picture: AFP

Ian Healy had sledged Windies paceman Shamar Joseph for goading Konstas in the build-up. “You’re not Curtly Ambrose,” Healy said, which was correct at the time of pronunciation, but Joseph didn’t need to be. Outswinger, outswinger, outswinger, inswinger, twice he cleaned up Konstas, bowling rings around him, to leave the scoreboard Joseph 1, Healy 0, Konstas 0, and Australia 4-92 at stumps on day two, leading by 102 runs.

After their lame submission at Lord’s and another series of unfortunate events against the Windies, Australia’s batters barely deserve the same dressing room as the bowlers. Josh Inglis was given an Ashes audition alongside Konstas but he’s twice failed, too. Cam Green has malfunctioned at number three.

Weak batting cost Australia the World Test Championship and has continued beneath the coconut tree in the Caribbean. The Ashes are only a heartbeat away. Konstas’s and Green’s trials and tribulations give Australia an imperfect hue on the far side of a perfect bowling attack. The quote of the week came from Donald Trump about Iran and Israel – “They don’t know what the f..k they’re doing” – but those same words could equally reference Australia’s panhandle batting.