Enter Sam Konstas and Phoebe Litchfield: the changing face of Australian cricket
What does it take to wear the baggy green in 2025? Sam Konstas and Phoebe Litchfield have what it takes to rise through the ranks of the sport’s greats.
In the heavyset shadows of a morning still sleeping, little Sam Konstas would sneak into his parents’ bedroom in their home in Sydney’s southern suburbs and rummage about for some shoes and socks. He’d then move to the bed, unfurl the bottom of the doona, and gently dress his father’s feet in what he’d found.
“It’d be like 5am and he’d still be asleep,” explains Sam. “I’d do it so he’d take me to the nets and throw me some balls before he had to go to work.”
These early sessions speak of the dedication and passion that the boyishly moustachioed teenager has always had for the game. “He loved his cricket from a very young age,” says his father Jim. “I remember we’d be at kids’ birthday parties in the park playing games, but if there was a cricket net there, Sam would want to miss the games and the chocolates and the cake and go over and play. I guess he was committed from a very young age.”
Jim is a disciple of the game, a self-described “backyard warrior”, and he eyed his son’s talent early. “His hand-eye-ball coordination was phenomenal – I guess I saw it because he was just better than his older brother [Billy] and his twin [Johnny]. He’d get behind the ball and the noise coming off the bat ... wow!”
Around the same time that Sam was tickling his father’s toes in the city, on a farm outside Orange, young Phoebe Litchfield was driving balls into a homemade net into the night. Her dad, country vet Andrew Litchfield, wanted Phoebe and her brother Charles to have what he’d had as a boy growing up cricket-mad in the scrubby throes of Cooma. Upon moving with his young family to the NSW Central Tablelands, Andrew set about building a cricket net in the corner of a tennis court on the property. At first, he bowled ball after ball to his son, but then young Phoebe asked: “Dad, can I have a hit?”
“She just loved it,” says Andrew. “The kids would be out there, running around into the night playing cricket and hockey and tennis. And that net worked really well for Phoebe and her brother, who was also a good cricketer.”
Playing with her brother, six years her senior, certainly sharpened Phoebe’s batting. Andrew, a handy grade cricketer who works with the NSW Western Cricket Zone Female Academy, soon stepped in to guide her progression. “She was incredibly competitive against her brother and wanted to hit every ball in the middle of the bat. She was also very capable – you could show her something and she had the hands and eyes to be able to replicate it. That’s pretty unique for someone so young. Having mentored both the kids, it’s nice to see them where they are – one who got there, I guess, and one who’s playing the game because they love it [Charles now plays grade cricket for Sydney University].”
Now it’s a chilly Friday afternoon in May at Cricket NSW headquarters in the shadow of Sydney Olympic Park where we find Sam, 19, and Phoebe, 22 – two cricketers widely recognised as having the talent, drive, brains and charisma to take Australian cricket into the future – spending their day filming social media content for a national sport arguably in need of some fresh spirit.
The pair have had the call-up from Cricket Australia to star in videos for cricket.com.au and its associated Instagram, Facebook and YouTube channel. Afterwards, they’re filming a net session, which the Cricket Australia digital team will package up as a “batting masterclass” for its 10 million YouTube subscribers. It’s publicity work (as is our photoshoot, which is also happening today). Contractual stuff. The kind many sports stars find a drag, and certainly not what these two dreamed of in the suburbs and the country not so many years ago. But here in the nets, playing for the cameras, not only are their prodigious natural talents on display, but also their infectious personalities: Litchfield’s natural effervescence and style collide with Konstas’s earthy ability to take a backseat and let her shine. Over the phone from London, ahead of this week’s World Test Championship at Lord’s, Todd Greenberg, Cricket Australia’s newly-appointed CEO, gives the pair a ringing endorsement, telling this magazine they are both “special” and “outstanding” players, as well as people. They are born to do this. All of it.
Generations of young Australians have dreamt of one day playing cricket for their country. Youthful energy shaped in emulation of national heroes fuels lengthy stints belting about backyards and down driveways, or squaring up in cul-de-sacs with battered bats and taped-up tennis balls. The sound of a ball slamming into garage doors invokes the inevitable dismissal via “automatic” wicketkeepers, and there are always those theatrical shouts for lbw to an imaginary umpire, pleading to the universe for the wicket of a sibling or another neighbourhood kid.
But few poke their father awake – day in, day out – seeking to advance a dream that, for Sam Konstas at least, ultimately ignited last year’s Boxing Day Test in an incendiary on-field incident with the titans of international cricket, India.
The series itself had been swinging when he made his debut. India had emphatically won the first Test in Perth; Australia levelled with a victory in Adelaide. The third Test in Brisbane was rained out, leaving the series deliciously and delicately poised 1-1.
Konstas was fresh off scintillating form at the domestic level as the youngest player to score back-to-back Sheffield Shield centuries since Ricky Ponting in 1993. He had also notched a dazzling 90-ball century against India for the Prime Minister’s XI. There was a chorus from cricket greats and commentators to bring in the kid for the fourth Test in Melbourne, and the selectors eventually obliged.
Having celebrated his 19th birthday only two months earlier, Konstas became the youngest Test debutant since an 18-year-old Pat Cummins in 2011. As he was presented with his Baggy Green by former Australian skipper Mark Taylor, father Jim – standing beside his wife Pamela, and their other boys Billy and Johnny – wore a deep-set smile that spoke of pride, the thousands of balls he’d thrown at his son across the years, and those early mornings at Hurstville Oval.
It had all led here, as Sam had said it would from the age of eight. But what came next – that’s where this dream becomes an unforgettable memory.
“I’m not going to lie, I’ve watched that first innings a few times,” Sam Konstas admits to me. How many? “Maybe three times … today.” It’s a joke. There’s a cheeky smile attached.
What Konstas sees in playback is a style of batting built in the moment. He’d not planned his approach. He simply wanted to play with confidence, “and take it back to India a bit”.
Locked into a sweaty MCG that day, what the 87,242 Australian and Indian fans witnessed – not to mention the millions watching the TV broadcast – was a teenage debutant playing with flair driven by fearlessness.
“I’d done the hard work – I wanted to express myself,” he tells me.
Traditional cricketing types will tell you the opening batter’s job in Test cricket is to work their way into a game. They need to take the literal shine off the new ball, which is being bowled at around 145km/h, and ideally see off the opening bowlers. Get your eye in. Punish any loose deliveries. Be watchful. And patient. Set things up for those to follow.
Against the world’s best bowler, India’s Jasprit Bumrah, and a mere ten balls into his international Test career, Sam Konstas scandalously played a reverse ramp, attempting to flick the ball up and over the wicketkeeper behind the stumps. A trick shot. A premeditated flourish and one associated with cricket’s much shorter versions. A shot that riles cricket’s older, tie-wearing members and traditionalists. A shot that left viewers gasping.
The teenager played that shot, and missed. Had he lost his wicket there, well, this tale wouldn’t exist.
Another attempted ramp and another miss. And then … connection. Third time lucky. Four runs. Then comes a six. And another six. Bumrah smiles. The crowd noise is deafening. It’s all rather unexpected.
Oh. What. Fun.
Konstas reached his debut Test 50 off just 52 balls, eventually coming unstuck on 60. His highlight reel showed a variety of play and placement – a mix of the mischievous (those ramps and some flashy reverse sweeps) and the textbook (a cracking square cut to the fence; a big pull for four; a stand-and-deliver off drive).
“It was mesmerising,” says Adam Gilchrist. The former Australian batsman didn’t know too much about Konstas before that day. He was aware of the name and the fact that he’d quickly risen through the juniors to state ranks, a name that was increasingly being bandied about and spoken of in terms of expectation.
A bold and brutal batsman throughout his career – Gilly’s 57-ball century at the WACA in 2006 stands as the fastest ever hit in an Ashes series – smiles in his recollection of Boxing Day. “What we saw in that one [MCG] session was incomparable to anything I’ve witnessed in Test cricket,” he says. “It was enthralling and captivating, and so many people who aren’t even into cricket, let alone Test cricket, they’re sitting there on Boxing Day with the telly on just amazed at what’s happening.”
That first innings reel also recorded the Indians’ response. Konstas completely rattled them. Bumrah, who’d owned the Australian team to that point, swapped his smile for an aggrieved stare and wild gesticulation toward teammates. Then, superstar Virat Kohli intentionally shoulder-bumped Konstas as he fiddled with his gloves in a terse exchange between overs.
What. Just. Happened?
In preparation for this piece, I was told by Cricket Australia that Konstas would perhaps rather leave this pivotal moment – which shaped the summer series, and saw Australia claim the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time since 2017 – in the past. But how can you? It’s part of the Konstas story. Always will be.
Kohli, who announced his retirement from Test cricket in May, was a hero to young Konstas – a batsman of allure who, alongside Australia’s David Warner and Shane Watson, and England’s Jos Buttler, he would eye off and look to emulate in familial net sessions. “I’ve always idolised [Kohli] – I have major respect for him and I was very lucky to play two games against him,” Konstas says. “I can tell my future kids that I did that.”
What about the MCG shoulder-barging incident, then? “Yeah, it created a bit of theatre,” he says matter-of-factly. Without pause or hesitation – or any elaboration. Yes, there’s definitely a desire to move past it.
There’s an undeniable swagger in the way Sam Konstas goes about things as a cricketer. He walks out to bat like he’s stepping into an argument he’s already won. It’s quietly punk. Not in a loud, snarling way, but in the elegant refusal of conformity. He is happily himself.
Some chalk this up to an inflated sense of self. But you can’t make it to the top without confidence – and in person, it’s quickly obvious that the confidence Konstas carries hasn’t crossed into the darker domains of ego. He’s impeccably polite – a good Greek boy who loves his Yiayia’s moussaka and is giving of his time. As he moves between the photoshoot and the nets, he chats with young cricketers who are arriving for training. “I understand there’s going to be more attention on me [since Boxing Day] – you close the circle a bit and, you know, rely on your family. They’re the ones who are going to be there no matter what, through the ups and downs,” he says.
Parents Jim and Pamela are equally set to pull Sam a little closer. “I do worry, yeah. I’m protective and cautious of his finances … and also, you know, with the girls,” offers Jim.
The young Konstas hadn’t been inclined to talk about this. Go on then, Jim – you were saying? “There’s a lot of attention ... You know, there was a cohort, these girls, these fans, that would hang around the hotel just to see him. I do worry a bit about the distractions …”
For the record, Gilchrist reckons the young charge will be just fine. “It’s about listening to those you know and trust,” he says. “And grinding it out. By doing all the preparation well, Sam doesn’t need to be concerned about expectation or pressures – just go out there, trust that preparation and allow it to unfold.”
There’s a curious side to Konstas. He asks questions that many teens would never do. In our time together, he asks me where I grew up. Was I married? Did I have kids? And crucially, did they play cricket? It’s small talk, sure. But he actively seeks the engagement. And listens. Even when I tell him the kids prefer to surf than stand around fielding in the heat of summer.
“They should play cricket … I get it, though, surfing’s cool,” he says.
Konstas, who Phoebe Litchfield cheekily calls “poster boy”, is the daring figure Australian cricket needs right now. Maybe he won’t make the sport as cool as surfing because, well, surfing. But judging by the crowds around the nets when he was warming up at the Sydney Cricket Ground last summer,he may help turn around cricket’s slide in teenage participation, as noted in CA’s 2023-24 report.
“All I want is to be the best version of myself,” he says. “Hopefully, I keep getting better and win games with Australia.”
Next to nascent star Konstas, Litchfield ispractically a veteran. She too made her debut for her country aged 19, back in 2022. It was clear very early in her career that she wasn’t just good, but a dead-set gun, someone with the potential to shape the future of the game.
As a youngster, she excelled in both hockey and cricket. A left-handed batter, she moved to playing lower grades in senior cricket with adult men who would initially slow their bowling for her, at least until the then 14-year-old belted them over the boundary.
Her talent at hockey could have led to a Hockeyroos berth, but at 16 Litchfield chose cricket. “It was a tough decision,” she says. “But I just fell in love with cricket training – that set it apart. Hockey training was drills for fitness, but cricket, I feel, because it’s kind of an individual sport within a team sport, I could spend hours in the nets trying to work out each shot, and that’s what kept me coming back. Because with this sport, you never really master it.”
In July 2019, a video of Litchfield in the nets at Cricket NSW headquarters was posted to Twitter and piqued the interest of domestic cricket fans; later that year, aged 16 and still at school, she made her debut for the NSW Breakers in the national 50-Over competition. Then came a call-up for Sydney Thunder in the Twenty20 Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL). In her second WBBL game she became the youngest player to score a half-century, and the spotlight firmly swung her way. The national team came calling – a debut against India in T20 first, and then her one-day international debut against Pakistan in 2022, in which Litchfield scored 78 not out and was named Player of the Match.
The plaudits continued to roll in, and by 2023 Litchfield was named the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Emerging Cricketer of the Year. She went on to play in the historic trouncing of England in the women’s Ashes series, and was named Thunder captain – the WBBL’s youngest skipper, at only 21.
Her batting is a formidable display of power, precision and inventiveness – her trick bag including a peerless reverse sweep. “I reckon if I didn’t play hockey, my reverses wouldn’t have been a thing,” she says. “And even the switch hit, and just the hand speed as well. In hockey, you’ve got all that wrist work, the stick’s smaller, and it trains your hand-eye coordination.”
Litchfield says she sets a simple goal each time she bats. “I don’t want to get out,” she laughs, “because once you get out, you can’t bat anymore! My goal out there is to calm the nerves and then work with my partner at the other end and have as much fun as possible.”
Growing up, she idolised the swashbuckling Gilchrist and Mike Hussey – but she was also young enough to watch as the women’s game gained momentum in the popular consciousness; groundbreaking female cricketers like Ellyse Perry, current national captain Alyssa Healy and former captain Meg Lanning also made their impression on her. Lanning played with Litchfield before her retirement in 2023. When I ask her, “How far can Litchfield go?” she can only point to the sky. “Phoebe is someone who’s going to play for Australia for a very long time,” she says. “She’s someone I just look at and think, ‘You’re good, you’ve got it.”
That elusive “it”, Lanning believes, is quantified by deep talent wrapped within a healthy sense of belief. “She brings a good amount of confidence. She’s someone who wants to be involved in the big moments and play a big role in the game. And she’s already showing she’s capable of performing very well under pressure – she slotted into the national team seamlessly. For someone to be able to do that straight away is pretty impressive.”
Litchfield’s talent and desire to score quickly – whether as an opener or playing further down the order – is central to the excitement and evolution of the local women’s game, which peaked with Australia’s home T20 World Cup victory in front of an MCG crowd of 86,174 (that’s bigger than any Matildas soccer match) and has shown little signs of abating.
Latest Cricket Australia figures show female registrations in cricket clubs (senior and junior), as well as in the under-10 Woolworths Cricket Blast program, increased 26 per cent from 2021-22 to 2022-23 (from 40,143 to 50,377). Girls now constitute more than a quarter of all Woolworths Cricket Blast registered participants.
“I like to move with intent, and I think that’s the way women’s cricket is going,” Litchfield says. “Scores under 300 are getting chased down pretty easily. And we’ve kind of hit this wave of cricket where you don’t need to block too many balls – if the scoring’s there, just go for it.”
The modern cricket calendar runs a full 12 months. Litchfield will head from our shoot to a national camp in Darwin, and then to the Women’s 50-Over World Cup –“Oh I want to win that World Cup!” she says – to be held in India in September. After that, she’ll pad up for domestic WBBL commitments with Sydney Thunder (Konstas is also a Thunder squad member), then head back to India for the WPL series (the women’s version of the lucrative T20 IPL competition), where last year she was snapped up by the Gujarat Giants for a reported fee of $182,000. In the new year, she will return to Australia for a multi-format series against India, starting in February 2026.
As for Konstas, at the time of writing he was set to travel to England as part of the Australian squad to battle South Africa in the ICC World Test Championship final. There was some notion he may not make it to the crease, given a possible team reshuffle built on conditions and the competition. “It’s about controlling the controllables – because that’s all I can do,” Konstas offers with a straight bat when I ask about the likelihood of his selection. “I’m focused on training hard and improving my game. I do that, and the rest will take care of itself.”
What about this summer’s Ashes series on home soil? Against cricket gods like English captain Ben Stokes and the team’s Kiwi coach Brendon McCullum? How does he think he might fare against England’s brand of aggressive cricket, christened “Bazball”? “The rivalry speaks for itself and the fans will thoroughly enjoy it,” he says. “For now, I just look forward to being around the team, to keep learning from them and some of the best players in the world, like Steve Smith and Pat Cummins.”
A sense of mystery remains in the margins. Because the stories of Sam Konstas and Phoebe Litchfield are far from written. Right now, they’re young. Finding themselves and the way forward. Having some fun. In only a few years, Australian cricket and its famous faces – Cummins, Smith, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Starc, Healy, Perry and their ilk – will all have moved on. Generational change is inevitable, and with significant series and tournaments on the near horizon it may happen sooner than we think. So it’s smart, and urgent, that Cricket Australia puts these two young stars front and centre of its social media. And they’re ready for it.
Alongside being a cricket prodigy, Litchfield is studying for a Bachelor of Communications in Media Arts and Production at the University of Technology, Sydney, where she happens to be studying social media’s power. “I think social media has so much bad stuff about it, and I feel it’s not something that kids should be exposed to early … but I also think what we can do with it is awesome, especially in women’s sport,” she says. “It’s a way of telling our stories and inspiring people through that.”
Has she (with her 83,000 Instagram followers) felt any hate that comes with a public profile? “It’s brutal, and I try not to read it, but sometimes it’s quite funny,” she says.
The younger Konstas is relatively new to popularity on various social platforms, and yet he has a mind-boggling 272,000 followers on Instagram, where he posts about cricket, family and travels. It’s a snapshot of life as a teenage cricket phenom. Konstas tells me he keeps it “real” online. When we chat, I can’t help but note that he’s also new to the temptations of alcohol and nightlife. How does he resist the after-dark pull of nightclubs and pub sessions?
“I’m not a big drinker,” he says. “My mates will go out, but then you also know what’s best for you and what your passion is, and so I stay in and keep training … To be honest, I never loved going out – I just wanted to play cricket.”
On set at Silverwater, the pair are vibrant and at ease – an entanglement of youth that’s infectious and energetic. They bounce from Cricket Australia duties to our photoshoot in good humour. Konstas jokes about his teenage moustache that battles to find any true form. Litchfield dances to some decidedly questionable music – playing in the background is the 1994 earworm Cotton Eye Joe by Swedish country Eurodance oddity Rednex. “It’s fun doing this, it’s different,” she says with a smile that rarely leaves her face.
I spot Konstas coveting a kaleidoscopic pair of high-end Missoni slides that our stylist has brought along. “Who doesn’t like getting dressed up a bit?” he says without a trace of embarrassment, or allusion to his so-called sartorial faux pas of last summer when he wore Adidas sneakers to a Kirribilli House reception with the Prime Minister. (Then again, he did request that we loan him some R.M. Williams boots for our photoshoot …) Energetic and hardworking, it’s only when Litchfield begins to parrot a viral TikTok song, Who put the muffins in the freezer?, that I and the assembled crew begin to feel our age.
As our photoshoot nears its end, Litchfield is preparing for some daring action shots that require her to leap over a seated and helmeted Konstas.
“You got this – I trust you,” he enthuses.
“Shit, I don’t want to knock you out. Not you, poster boy,” Litchfield quips.
“You won’t – you got this.”
She does. As does he. They’ve got this.
Tickets for the 2025/26 international summer of cricket are now on sale. Visit cricket.com.au/tickets
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