Sam Konstas has become a modern-day Kim Barnett. For those not familiar with Barnett, who was a very fine player for Derbyshire, Gloucestershire and England, averaging a tick over 40 with 61 centuries in first-class cricket, he had an extremely unorthodox technique which involved standing a long way outside leg stump and then moving a huge distance across his stumps.
As recalled recently in an interview in The Cricketer, when the great Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath first caught sight of Barnett, he said in astonishment: “You’re taking the piss!”
It was not recorded what the Victorian, Scott Boland, said at the Junction Oval in Melbourne in the Sheffield Shield match against New South Wales, but he did not need to say too much about Konstas’s new trigger movement. It is not as big as Barnett’s but still begins with both feet outside leg stump and is certainly bigger than what Konstas describes as being “small, just to be more proactive and move my feet in better positions” after previously standing still and looking very rigid at the crease.
It took Boland — playing his second game of the season and readying himself to replace injured captain Pat Cummins in the first Ashes Test in Perth next month — only four balls to dismiss Konstas for a duck, three balls that the 20-year-old left, and then a fourth that was straight and pinned the batsman bang in front. And with that, the whole debate about Australia’s Ashes batting order began swirling out of control yet again.
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These really are curious times, where there is so much uncertainty about Australia’s line-up, while England only have the Ollie Pope/Jacob Bethell matter to resolve at No3.
As the former Australia opener, Justin Langer, has said: “It’s unprecedented that Australia go into an Ashes without a really solid top three. I think Usman Khawaja has had six opening partners in a year. It can’t be healthy. That’s the truth. We’re sort of getting to that point where we’re having a shoot-out every year for the opening batter.”
And the truth is also that Khawaja, who is locked in to open, will be 39 in December and, lovely man though he is and a lovely player he has been, is desperately attempting to avoid the calls that Father Time is making to him. He made 232 against Sri Lanka in Galle in January to massage his figures a little, because without that score he averages just 20.82 in Test cricket this year.
He made 0 and 6 in the World Test Championship final against South Africa at Lord’s, where he opened with Marnus Labuschagne, and then failed to make a half-century in three Tests in the Caribbean, where, with Labuschagne dropped, the recalled Konstas’s top score was 25 in averaging a horrible 8.33.
Konstas’s 65 against India on Boxing Day remains his best score
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Konstas then is the most unsteady of incumbents, even if he did make an impressive century for Australia A against India A in Lucknow last month. The kid has talent. He scored a mountain of runs as a youngster, but I stand by the caution urged about him after his debut 60 off 65 balls against India last Boxing Day.
That remains his highest Test score in ten innings and there were obvious technical shortcomings on show that he attempted to mask through bravado and invention. He is a sucker for the very ball with which Boland dismissed him on Wednesday, one that nips back and challenges his heavy head and an unusual top-hand grip that struggles to control the face of the bat. A big trigger movement is not going to help that head that always appears inclined to acquaint itself with the gully fielder.
If not Konstas up top, then who? Well, let’s see who might be at No3 first. At Lord’s last summer in the WTC final and against West Indies, Cameron Green filled that spot, but he could not bowl then, meaning Beau Webster came in at No6 as the all-rounder instead. But Green is starting to bowl again now, and it seems pretty obvious that six is his better position. And Webster is injured at the moment too.
Labuschagne is in good form. He has made three centuries for Queensland already this season, two in the one-day cup and one in the Sheffield Shield. The Australia head coach, Andrew McDonald, has been impressed.
“He’s doing all the right things at the moment with three domestic hundreds in four hits,” he said. “And more impressive was the method that he applied in the front half of that [Shield] innings in particular.
“It’s not necessarily the output sometimes you’re looking for. It’s the way he’s going about it, some subtle changes that he has made to his game.”
Labuschagne appears to be out of his funk
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With Steve Smith and Travis Head certainties at four and five, it would surely make sense for Labuschagne to fit back in at his preferred No3 slot and for Green to go down to six.
But that only brings us back to that opening spot. The former Australia fast bowler, Brett Lee, wants Konstas heavily involved.
“I think he’s the future of Australian cricket,” he said. “If I’m coach or captain, I’m saying, ‘Sam, you’re playing all five Tests. I don’t care if you go duck, duck, duck, duck, you’re playing all five Tests’. What that does is you’re not looking over your shoulder if you nick off. You’ve got ten innings and this is your summer.”
It’s a bold shout. The former Australia captain, Greg Chappell, thinks Matt Renshaw, Khawaja’s opening partner at Queensland, who has played 14 Tests, might be a sage choice, while other names being mentioned are the likes of Cameron Bancroft, Nathan McSweeney, Jake Weatherald and Josh Inglis. Or, of course, Labuschagne could open, and Green and Webster (if fit) could remain as they are at three and six.
But what flux, and, for the English, what frolics.
On Saturday Steve James is doing his third and hardest Bike for Beth in memory of his daughter, Bethan. He is riding more than 200 miles in a day from Cardiff to Narberth and back, Bethan’s two favourite places. He is raising money for three charities close to him and Bethan — 2wish, Crohn’s & Colitis UK and the Cricketers’ Trust. Please support if you can by visiting the fundraising page