David Warner has praised Sam Konstas’ audacious approach against Jasprit Bumrah and India, but questioned why a 19-year-old had to set the example for Australia’s top order.
Konstas’ sparkling first-innings 60 on Boxing Day set the tone for Australia’s memorable Test win, putting them 2-1 up in the series with one to play.
Funky as it was, Konstas’ knock also attracted plenty of critics with his audacious ramp shots and decisions to charge down the deck.
The 34 runs he took off Bumrah in the opening session marked the most any player has ever scored against the Indian in one spell, and acted to unsettle the quick.
The innings also created a slipstream for Usman Khawaja’s first half-century of the series, while Marnus Labuschagne spoke of how it influenced his approach.
Bumrah still took nine wickets for the match, including Konstas’ when he beat him with a ball that jagged back between bat and pad in the second innings at the MCG.
Konstas’ arrival at the top is Australia’s most eye-catching since the likes of Phillip Hughes and Warner, whose natural tendencies were both to attack.
“It was very special,” Warner said.
“People are going to criticise him as well. That’s the nature of the beast, that’s the way he is going to play.
“When someone like Bumrah is bowling to you, you have to try and execute somehow.
“What he did in the Prime Minister’s XI shows he has that talent. But it also shows he is brave.”
Sam Konstas. (Photo by Josh Chadwick/Getty Images)
Bumrah still looms as Australia’s biggest threat to regaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with a win or draw in Sydney.
Ten wickets at the SCG would put him level with Shane Warne’s 40 wickets from the 2005 Ashes as the most dismissals in one series this century.
India’s seamer has removed Khawaja five times this series, Travis Head and Nathan McSweeney four times, and Mitch Marsh and Steve Smith three times each.
His haul in Melbourne also made him the only bowler in history to have 200 wickets at an average of less than 20, with his ability to move the ball both ways and with such accuracy making him so dangerous.
“(Sam was) being brave at the top of the order, but you’ve got guys who have played 50 Tests, they could have been brave as well,” Warner said.
“They could have played different shots, they could have moved out of their crease and batted different. (Smith) Smudge tried a million different things.
“But it shouldn’t take someone to come out there and be brave to get that momentum shifting.
“You have experience at the top of the order, experience in that whole line-up. Travis Head took the game away from them in Adelaide with that magnificent hundred.
“It shouldn’t take that guy just to come and do that. It’s the way the Australians played but other people can be braver as well.”
© AAP
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