Showy Konstas is taking risks because he’s a limited player
The teenage sensation makes even Bazball look conservative, but batting like that won’t last at Test level.
Martin Bicknell summed it up quite nicely. Writing on social media, the former Surrey and England bowler said: “For anyone [Aussies] complaining India are over the top in their approach to Sam Konstas, they didn’t play against Australia in the 80s and 90s. Off the chart intimidation.”
For England cricketers who faced Australia in that era and many others besides, there will have indeed been a chorus of chuckles, with irony-alert claxons sounding off loudly around them, when the Australia head coach Andrew McDonald complained of the intimidation being heaped upon young Konstas by the Indian team after Jasprit Bumrah dismissed Usman Khawaja at the end of day one of the Sydney Test.
For the record, that was entirely Konstas’s fault. Engaging himself in a disagreement between Bumrah and Khawaja over time-wasting, enraging the great Bumrah in the process, was silly and a salutary lesson explained only by exuberant inexperience.
As former Australia captain Ricky Ponting said: “That was not his battle to fight. It was between Khawaja and Bumrah. For the young man, I hope that there was some talking to from the Australian dressing room last night because he should have stayed out of that [and] let his senior player handle the last couple of balls. One guy you don’t want to upset is Jasprit Bumrah.”
Indeed you don’t, even if Konstas’s Test career had barely begun in the fourth Test at Melbourne when he was announcing in an on-field interview at drinks of his intention to keep targeting the India fast bowler.
The chutzpah has been astonishing from the moment the 19-year-old began unfurling an array of ramps and reverse-ramps off Bumrah earlier that morning and he has certainly grabbed attention in his first two Tests, challenging beliefs, traditions and orthodoxies to an extent that maybe Bazball has not even managed.
He so wound up Virat Kohli in Melbourne that a shoulder barge was forthcoming. That was most definitely not Konstas’s fault. That was puerile and pathetic from Kohli, that most fierce and passionate of competitors, but one who has always appeared to be only a step away from petulance. This was the unsightly act of a man desperately trying to shrug off the winter cloak that appears to have enveloped that career.
“Desperate” was actually the word that first sprung to mind during Konstas’s maiden Test innings of 60 from 65 balls. He had looked so at sea against Bumrah, playing and missing so often as to be swishing at air more than a conductor of the orchestra, that his high-risk options looked like his only choice. This was very different from the “run towards the danger” positivity of Bazball, much more precarious.
Don’t get me wrong: it was exhilarating to watch, as indeed was the entire series between England’s two heavyweight Test opponents this year, and perhaps we should reflect first on exactly why Konstas had been selected.
The dropping after only three Tests of Nathan McSweeney, a No 3 pushed up to open, had seemed so un-Australian, so reactive and panicky – so England in the 90s, actually. McDonald had said at the time: “We wanted to throw a new challenge at India. What he [Konstas] has shown is an array of shots and an ability to put pressure back on his opponents. Whether it works or not, time will tell.”
Doubtless emboldened by Konstas’s 107 off 97 balls for the Prime Minister’s XI against India earlier in the tour, Australia wanted something different, not least a young buck to enliven their team of thirty-somethings, and it certainly worked in the sense that the home side won both the Tests in which Konstas appeared. Whether the Sydney larrikin with the Greek surname has a long-term future in Test cricket is another matter altogether.
His bravery is unquestionable, both in his shot selection and in his general demeanour, but even in his homeland he has already split opinion. “Is Sam showman or showboat?” asked a headline in The Australian.
I would suggest he is a bit of both at the moment and he will learn quickly about that fine line between confidence and arrogance. His batting method is far from conventional, although the former Australia opener, Simon Katich, suggested that Konstas was playing very much out of character in his two Tests.
“From what I can gather talking to some of the NSW boys, he doesn’t always play like this,” he said. “So it’s been a bit of a shock to hear that this is completely different to how he normally goes about it.”
Konstas has always been a heavy runscorer at all levels thus far. In age-group, school and grade cricket he scored hundreds for fun and the comparisons with Ponting were loud and frequent, not least when Konstas became the youngest player since the Tasmanian devil to score twin centuries in the Sheffield Shield. Konstas has even acquired the nickname “Pinter” – a pint-sized version of “Punter” Ponting, so called because of his love of betting.
But in terms of technique, Ponting and Konstas are worlds apart. Yes, Konstas does clearly like to pounce on the short ball as Ponting once did so voraciously – the best shot of his debut 60 was the gunshot pull for a one-bounce four to deep mid-wicket off Mohammed Siraj – but an unusual grip on the bat is always going to mean that he has limitations.
His hands are split on the handle, with the top hand right at the top and the bottom at the base, but his top hand is wrapped so far around the front of the handle that his front elbow has to protrude out towards mid-wicket in his set-up, meaning that he often finds it difficult to control the face of the bat with that top hand, resulting in his bottom hand taking over too early.
This is especially obvious when defending, where he is often forced to push hard at the ball with that bottom hand, leaving a huge gap that can be exploited by the ball nipping back in, as Bumrah did when bowling him in Australia’s second innings in Melbourne.
Exposing Konstas to balls that swing back or nip back into him has long been an accepted means of dismissing him bowled or leg-before, as Middlesex’s Seb Morgan showed for England when bowling Konstas for a duck in last year’s Under-19 World Cup. Konstas’s susceptibility to such deliveries is increased because his head has a tendency to topple to the off side at ball-release, with the toes of his front foot often pointing towards cover when they should be aimed much straighter.
England’s analysts will have noted this and the captain Ben Stokes will surely be quick to post a fine third man, as India did, should Konstas revert to reverse-ramps as a way of countering England’s fast bowlers in next winter’s Ashes.
That, of course, is still some time off (despite our constant references to it) and it will be fascinating to see how the top threes of both teams shape up by then. Last year was a tough one for openers in Test cricket, with, according to ESPN Cricinfo, the average partnership of 27.78 the second lowest among the 54 years in which there have been at least 75 opening stands.
Is Khawaja shot, or does he just have a problem with Bumrah? (As so many do.) Has Marnus Labuschagne’s luck finally run out? Do England have to find a place for Jacob Bethell? If they do, which of Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope makes way?
So much to ponder, but if I were to make one bold prediction it would be that the 21-year-old Bethell, a player with flair but much solidity too, does play in the Ashes and becomes much the better Test batsman than Konstas.
That might actually be two predictions, and, yes, Bethell still does not have a first-class century in comparison to Konstas’s mountain of runs, but these are very different and intriguing times in which we live.
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