Australia’s selection panel has three members. It said much for the importance of this day, when Sam Konstas auditioned for a possible Test call-up against the proven Scott Boland, that two of them were at the MCG on Monday.
Tony Dodemaide was joined by Australia’s head coach Andrew McDonald for a close look at teenager Konstas, senior pro Steve Smith and their seam bowling opponents Boland and Fergus O’Neill.
Sam Konstas bats at the MCG.Credit: Getty Images
Looking a little further down the list of potential suitors for the Test side, they may also have been glancing at Nic Maddinson, while Ollie Davies and Josh Philippe were other recent call-ups to play for Australia A.
With selection chair George Bailey in Brisbane to watch Matt Renshaw and Usman Khawaja fall cheaply against South Australia, only Western Australia’s Cameron Bancroft went unwatched in Perth among Test team contenders.
For Konstas, the audition was startlingly short. His first ball from Boland beat the edge and shaved narrowly past the off stump, almost as if to say “welcome to the big time, Sam”. Another delivery was edged short of the slips cordon.
Boland then arrowed in on Konstas’ front pad and the stumps on his favourite MCG hunting ground, and won an lbw verdict when the 19-year-old had made just two from 10 balls, propping forward a little like his mentor Shane Watson once did.
Instinctively, Konstas gestured with his glove that the ball may have been veering past leg stump, and replays indicated that was undoubtedly plausible. Boland, angling in and seaming further, is a past master of finding the pads in front of the stumps.
Umpires have, in the DRS era, become less conservative about judging how often the ball would have gone down the leg side. As was the case so often with Watson, this one would most certainly have drawn a review had the facility been available.
Plenty of hype accompanied Konstas to the middle. A voice as loud as Gerard Whateley’s pronounced “it could prove the most significant Sheffield Shield innings so far this decade”, and the game was not merely streamed on the Cricket Australia website, but also airing on Fox Cricket.
But all those expectations meant little in the face of an early season MCG pitch, a well-calibrated Boland, and the vagaries of umpiring decisions. Konstas took a walk around the boundary after the lunch break, and with the game progressing at speed, will get another knock as soon as Tuesday.
Smith clipped his first ball from Boland through midwicket with ease, but there was very little comfort in the rest of his stay. It was O’Neill, hitting a handkerchief around the off stump, who posed most problems, and Smith faced 28 consecutive dot balls on the way to a glove down the leg side and a brisk march off the field.
Victoria’s Scott Boland dismisses Sam Konstas, of NSW, lbw for 2 in the Sheffield Shield match at the MCG.Credit: cricket.com.au
O’Neill’s pre-lunch spell featured 10 consecutive overs and figures of 2-11, bowling the kind of precision seam and swing that would reap untold dividends in English county cricket. At 23, he has committed to spending more time in the gym before trying the northern summer.
With that, most of the day’s primary proceedings had already taken place so far as Dodemaide and McDonald were concerned. Victorian skipper Will Sutherland also gave a good account of himself in his first Shield game of the season, leaving NSW in a batting hole.
Their predicament also put fresh perspective on how Marcus Harris and Peter Handscomb had battled through on day one. Older and wider than Konstas, they put in the groundwork to allow Boland, O’Neill and Sutherland to thrive.
