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Sam Konstas first revealed his plan to ramp Jasprit Bumrah over a pre-match meal late on Christmas Day.
“We had dinner the night before the game, and he said he would do it on 150 if he got there,” his batting coach Tahmid Islam told BBC Sport.
Fast forward a few hours and debutant Konstas, Australia’s new 19-year-old batting sensation, was doing so on Boxing Day in front of 90 000 people at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Only, he had not waited until his 150th run, and not even his 150th ball.
“Initially I thought I might be out of a job as batting coach when he missed the first couple,” Islam says.
Konstas may have failed with those first two scoops, but he tried again soon after and hit Bumrah — the world’s top-ranked bowler — for a six and two fours on the way to 60 from 65 balls.
Those shots marked one of the most remarkable starts to a Test career in recent memory — cult hero status gained in a matter of minutes by a batter long tipped for the top.
Because, while Konstas’ emergence at the highest level was explosive, the journey to get there has been long.
He was the Sydney suburb kid of Greek heritage who was scoring hundreds before his age had reached double figures. In October he became the youngest player since the great Ricky Ponting to score centuries in each innings of a match in the Sheffield Shield, Australia’s first-class competition.
Two years before that, and just a month after his 17th birthday, Konstas became the youngest batter to score a century for Sutherland in the top tier of Sydney’s notoriously tough grade cricket. The previous holder of that record? A certain Steve Smith.
“I remember not being too surprised it was him that did it,” says Sutherland captain Tom Doyle. — BBC.
Online Reporter