It was the most exhilarating start to a Boxing Day Test on record, all thanks to a teenage kid who is only just shaving. KEN PIESSE reports:
It was ‘S.K’ day at the MCG today, not S.K Warne, Melbourne’s most famous sporting son, but a debutant named Konstas, Sam Konstas.
No one, not even Warnie, has ignited Australian cricket’s most famous Test quite like the teenage Wizkid from St George.
In making 60 in the most uplifting opening hour of MCG Test cricket for generations, Konstas, 19, has guaranteed himself pivotal status on Australia’s next two Test tours to Sri Lanka next month and the West Indies in June.
In-between there will be many an IPL suitor and a rich contract guaranteed to make the most taciturn bank manager smile.
The aggressive right hander’s inventive mixture of lofted on drives and ramp shots rattled the Indians and made us all wonder why he wasn’t included earlier.
‘Every since he was 12 he has been excelling at every level he has ever played,’ said the ABC’s Stuart Clark.
Even Jasprit Bumrah, India’s fast bowling talisman, conceded 18 runs from an over: 4.2642 as Konstas ignored reputations and flayed the high-class bowling like he was back playing with his three brothers in Hurstville.
It was an extraordinary, dare-devil assault from a young man who is yet to play even a full season of state cricket with New South Wales.
At the height of his onslaught, India’s provocative ex-captain Virat Kohli shouldered Konstas in mid-pitch, while Konstas was adjusting his gloves in-between overs. A hefty fine will surely follow, should match referee Andy Pycroft dare play judge and jury against the most loved cricketer on the planet.
Seventy thousand were in for the start and almost 80,000 in by lunch, the latecomers bemoaning their lack of judgement in not arriving in time to see the Konstas kid excel.
As a Boxing Day disciple – I’ve seen every first day since the first in 1968-69 – it was the most dramatic beginning to a Test I could remember, right up there with Graham McKenzie’s six wickets before lunch in the riveting start to 1967-68 Indian Test, which started at the ‘G on December 30.
The audacity of Australia’s first-gamer and his pre-meditated advances at Bumrah before he’d bowled had MCC old-timers shaking their head in amazement.
He tried ramp shots, unsuccessfully, in Bumrah’s second and third overs before finally starting to connect, forcing India’s captain Rohit Sharma to scatter his field to parts of the MCG never before seen, especially in the first hour of a Test.
Konstas has an amazing eye and once he settled, he continued to back his judgement before falling to a slider from finger spinner Ravindra Jadeja and being trapped stone-dead lbw.
So rattled was Sharma that he sent one of his slips down to a peculiar deep fly slip right on the boundary rope overlooking second slip.
Only a week earlier at Manuka Oval, Konstas had made the fastest 50 in Big Bash history and he used the same brand of sublime lifts and wafts as well as some crashing pull shots which all but cleared the fence.
We all hoped Konstas’ one-man party could continue deep into the afternoon and there were groans when Jadeja first nipped a slider past him. But it was missing leg stump. The second was straighter and having consulted his partner Usman Khawaja, Konstas walked.
Later he did a dozen or so selfies for some of the younger fans near the Australian race.
We all had a new hero.
KEN PIESSE has covered cricket and football for more than 30 years in Melbourne. Despite that setback, Ken has written, published and edited 86 books on cricket and AFL football to become Australian sport’s most prolific author.
His latest cricket book is his own memoir, Living the Dream, 60 years in cricket and football with Wilkinson Publishing, out now.
www.cricketbooks.com.au
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