Sam Konstas: Steve Smith tips his baggy green cap to Australian Test Cricket bolter

Autralian cricket’s next big thing Sam Konstas has won admirers in legends, pundits, and even his legendary teammate.

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Thwock, thwock, thwock. He’s Elegant. Poised. Tall. Slim as a piece of string. He’s hitting square. Thwock. He’s stroking balls straighter than his pencil-thin moustache. Thwock. Middling everything. You can imagine Sam Konstas in a baggy green. Know what I mean? Some young blokes just look the part.

He’s having a net session in the indoor facilities at Cricket NSW. The 19-year-old has rocked up with his cap on backwards, Bart Simpson-style, wearing socks and sandals with his state uniform. Seems a cheerful young fellow. He bats in his blue NSW helmet. In the next net is Test captain Pat Cummins, wearing his champagne-stained, sun-damaged Australian lid. Quite the image, really. Konstas won’t get one of those until he’s earned it.

Two nets down from Konstas, and next to Cummins, is the ever-lively, ever-entertaining, ever-chatty Steve Smith. The 19-year-old Konstas keeps glancing at the Test stalwarts. As if trying to comprehend the company he’s in. When Konstas walks into his net, “Smith grins and calls out a friendly, “Young man!” When Konstas absolutely smokes a dapper, on-the-rise, booming drive, Smith grins and shouts, “Shot, sir!”

Kontas hitting alongside Smith. Photo: Tom Parrish

Thwock, thwock, thwock. There’s a succession of shots, sir, before Konstas will line up for NSW on Sunday in a Sheffield Shield match against Victoria that could not be more intriguing if it was written by Agatha Christie. Konstas’s velvet knocks of 152 and 105 in the season opener against South Australia have rocketed the teenager into Test contention. Keep that up and he’s every chance to be picked as diamond Dave Warner’s replacement for the first Test against India at Perth from November 22.

Shot, sir. Konstas’s rapid brings to mind the heartbreakingly late and great Phillip Hughes. Konstas is straight from the textbook. He’s still at the crease. No back-and-across movement before the moment of delivery. The backswing is straight over the top of off stump. It’s a controlled, unhurried stroke of the ball, a stroke not trying too hard to be powerful. Rather nice to watch. Hughes was a tearaway, swinging himself out of his shoes. Hughes scored so many runs for NSW that he had to be picked for Australia as a 20-year-old in 2009. Konstas has the Shield game against the Vics, and two golden opportunities for Australia A against India, to go from nowhere a week ago to the Test opening slot.

Thwock, thwock, thwock. Cummins and Smith have palpable gravitas. Cummins could be Captain America. Smith is absolutely clubbing the ball. Indoors, well-struck offerings sounds like cannon blasts. Konstas isn’t exactly strutting around, but he looks comfortable. He nicks one and says, “What happened there?! Outside edge!” The first delivery he hasn’t middled for about a month.

The bushy-haired teenager is also handy in the field. Photo: Tom Parrish

There was a disappointing element. The rain. Konstas was meant to face the music, the good old chin music, from Test speedsters Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc. That would have been revelatory. How would boy wonder go against the big dogs? Stand up for himself if swinging and seaming cherries were whistling past his ears? Fight fire with fire if they tried to knock his block off? We never got to find out. That’ll wait for another day. Miserable weather consigned Konstas’s session to harmless throwdowns in the indoor nets.

Still, he looked good, sir. It’s a crackerjack Shield game. Starc and Smith are playing for the Blues for the first time in yonks. Victoria’s Test quick and MCG specialist Scott Boland will give Konstas a stern examination. The Vics’ Marcus Harris is one of Konstas’s chief threats to the Test position. He gets the chance to make runs against a high-quality NSW attack. Rather than another Shield game being played in suburbia, it’s at the ‘G.

“I’ve seen a lot with young guys, when they score runs or take wickets, it’s ‘Let’s throw them in the deep end,” Starc said of Konstas. “It works for some. Sometimes it doesn’t. Thankfully I don’t have to select teams … but there’s no reason for him not to handle it. He’s obviously got the talent. Got the work ethic. He’s a lovely young man. Time will tell. If he’s not picked this summer then I’m sure runs on the board will help him in the long run.”

Thwock, thwock, thwock. A good, meaty sound. Shot, sir! Cricket revolves around timing. The strict hours of play. A bowler’s rhythm. Finding the meat of the bat. Putting your hand up for Test selection at the right moment. Konstas’s rise coincides perfectly with the retirement of Warner. If the Test top order was settled, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, sir. His timing’s right. Not even Bradman scored two Shield hundreds in the same game as a teenager. Konstas will show from Sunday whether the time is right.

“He looks pretty set in his game,” Starc said. “He works his butt off in the nets. He’s got a world of talent and that obviously translates into success on the field. Whatever he’s doing is clearly working. He’s just really young and talented. Those runs in the Shield game are only going to do him the world of good. Hopefully that translates into a big Shield season. If there are higher honours, fantastic. If not, hopefully he is scoring lots of runs for NSW.”