A 19-year-old star was born in the making this morning at the MCG in Melbourne with a debut Test 50 – his name is Sam Konstas, who plays for the New South Wales state side, Sydney Thunder and St George’s Cricket Club in Hurstville.
Wow, wow, take a bow! Love the way he took out one of the best bowlers against Jasprit Bumrah (still a huge threat as India’s frontline fast bowler who picked up three wickets so far) with quickfire & explosive shots flying everywhere including runs on the board too that we always see in white-ball cricket. It’s a shame he couldn’t go at least a bit further through lunch when a simple block landed on his pad and Ravi Jadeja was right on the money unfortunately with that LBW and that was his spell for a sound 60 runs.
I’m sure his rapid rise will continue to soar as fingers crossed for Sam scoring his first Test 100 soon enough – he’s like the right-hand version of the recently retired Davey Warner to me! Although be very careful of who he bumps into next time, especially when playing against the world’s best as Sam should continue to be Sam – having been bumped into a fracas by Virat Kohli.
Other than that, it’s been a brilliant batting day while India made up some lost time towards the end of the first day today.
Thankfully, the Aussies finally won the toss after all this time also prior to the start of play this morning – as they are currently 311/6 going into Day 2 of 5 tomorrow AM.
We had a plethora of our Top 3-4 batters scoring good half-tons like other opening mainstay & Konstas’ new batting partner Usman Khawaja (57), Marnus Labuschagne (72) over at No.3, and don’t forget Steve Smith as well next up at 4 who backed up another great shift so far & is still out there on 68 alongside skipper Pat Cummins.
Shoutout to wicket-keeper Alex Carey also following his quick score of 31 when we needed most with extra runs on the board before behind by Rishabh Pant.
However, not so much from Travis Head unfortunately despite his concussion issues after being sent straight back upstairs (0 off 7 balls); so does Mitchell Marsh who was also sent straight back yet again for only peanuts (4 off 13).
Maybe they could do a Nathan McSweeney (who was given the axe for Konstas) by giving Beau Webster a chance then? There’s nothing to lose if that’s what’s best for the Baggy Green where he can bowl both seam and spin & no doubt this could be their secret weapon when they usually played two spinners in the past but probably not in recent times.
What the Aussies need to do from there is score a bit more as they can with another Steve Smith masterclass 100, then bring the bowlers out to take the power games off India with the cult hero Scott Boland back in the XI by going one better in this five-test Border-Gavaskar Trophy series.
