Analysis: Sam Konstas’ West Indies struggles leave Australia selectors with mountain of problems

Australia’s selectors would have been banking on Sam Konstas filling his boots against the West Indies. Instead, a horror tour for the teenager in the midst of a wider batting malaise leaves them struggling for answers.

Oops! I did it again. As Britney Spears sang when she was 19, such a sentiment must have been going through Sam Konstas’ teenage head as he trudged off Sabina Park to end a most miserable series with the bat.

Heading into this series, Australia’s selectors would have hoped that Konstas would be able to fill his boots against a lowly opposition to shore up his spot as Australia’s opener for the Ashes and beyond.

The exact opposite has happened. The questions around the Sri Lanka tour and World Test Championship final revolved around how selectors could justify leaving the kid out.

After three weeks of Caribbean calamity, the question has become one of how they could pick him for the Ashes?

What would Konstas need to do between now and November for the panel to trust him against England?

Matt Renshaw (Test batting average of 29.31), Cameron Bancroft (26.23) and Marcus Harris (25.29) were all cast aside because they didn’t look like they were up to the level.

After nudging a length ball from Shamar Joseph to Roston Chase at gully to depart for a fifth-ball duck under the Jamaican lights, Konstas’ average plummeted to 16.30 after five Tests. That’s in the territory of Nathan McSweeney (14.40), the man who was brutally dumped for Konstas ahead of the Melbourne Test late last year.

All four of those discards are again in the frame. So too is Jake Weatherald following a stellar season for Tasmania, and others could yet stake claims between now and the first Test. Australia A has matches against Sri Lanka A and India A while there are four Sheffield Shield rounds before the urn goes on the line again.

There is an argument that Konstas may now have to do even more than the other challengers because his Test failures are so recent that the panel will not be able to back him in, even if he does start the domestic season strongly.

Circumstances must be noted before completely condemning Konstas for his output. This has been a historically tough series for batting, and that was even before the pink ball came into play in Kingston, where the panel felt things would be so tough that it ended 12 years of convention by dropping Nathan Lyon.

Sam Konstas’ struggles have left Australia’s selectors with an Ashes headache. Picture: Ricardo Mazalan/ AP Photo

And whatever becomes of him, Konstas will always have his feats of Boxing Day morning, when he stood down Jasprit Bumrah and wrested momentum Australia’s way on the path to a breakthrough series victory over India.

But probed by a strong West Indian pace battery, and not helped by difficult pitches and a devilish new Dukes ball, Konstas has been exposed as a work in progress not ready to be a consistent force in Test cricket.

He has made mid-series technical shifts, including changing to an off-stump guard in this Test, but the dual frailties against balls nipping back into him and those deviating outside the line of off-stump have condemned him to six innings of collective woe.

Konstas made just 50 runs for the series, and was dropped three times. Marnus Labuschagne used to be labelled a lucky cricketer for being put down by fielders with unusual frequency, but he also tended – at least until early 2023 – to make the opposition pay.

A penny for Marnus Labuschagne’s thoughts. Picture: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

Labuschagne must be in the Ashes conversation too. If he isn’t already, he should be having a word to his coaches in Queensland about the prospect of opening the batting at the start of the Shield season. After all there is a vacancy.

Konstas’ run has probably shielded Usman Khawaja from greater scrutiny. The 38-year-old also fell cheaply early in the night session on day two, meaning his series average ended at 19.50. But Khawaja still managed to absorb double as many balls as the man half his age.

He is just hanging on, and a poor run to start the Shield season would sharpen the focus, but needing to find one opener, selectors will have reservations about making two changes at the top.

It could not have been any more fitting that Cricket Australia released its domestic schedule on Monday morning, just as the Aussie top order slumped once more. The battlegrounds have been drawn. Let the bat-off begin.

Originally published as Analysis: Sam Konstas’ West Indies struggles leave Australia selectors with mountain of problems