It was indeed a very promising initiation against his name, Teenager Sam Konstas who scored fifty on debut before the Australians ground to a pounding 112 for 1 at the interval on Thursday, the opening day of the Boxing Day Test against India. He replaced Nathan McSweeney in Australia’s playing XI and showed exactly why selectors made such a bold call to add him to Test combatants. The batter started off slow, even struggling against Jasprit Bumrah before unleashing some exquisite T20 cricket shots to show up the pressure back on the bowler and India.
The debutant who is still 19 had 60 off 65 balls including six fours and two sixes both against Jasprit Bumrah sending the Indian pace spearhead into a fit.
Konstas opened his account with 16 runs off Bumrah’s fourth over, two fours and a maximum. This was the first six Bumrah gave up in Test cricket to India in the past four years. Much of what he has down so far has been in the form of ramps, both conventional and reverse, as the 19-year-old showed why he is such a highly rated batter here in that part of the world.
There he was, first on the board for the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy in the list of over-the-fence hitters against Bumrah. When the others faltered under the severe battering that was by most of the other marquee Indian pacers, here comes one fresh new way to deal with him.
That, however, was Ravindra Jadeja’s final contribution to Konstas’s entertaining innings; he leg-before-ed the boy in the 20th over.
He had an 89-run partnership with veteran Usman Khawaja (38 batting), who had a chance to play himself into some sort of form. At the break, Khawaja had Marnus Labuschagne (12 batting) were in the middle.
The batsman was looking forward to a few plays and misses off the first over of Jasprit Bumrah before things turned for the worse when the teen had made his first two runs.
In all, the guy banged six fours apart from the two maximums. Without doubt, Akash Deep (0/15 in 6 overs) bowled a good channel among the pacers. Sad for Siraj, he has been found guilty of bowling too full or too short.
