CRICKET Sam Konstas

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1910

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His unravelling from Boxing Day on has been unbelievable. I said at the time this wasn't how he has been batting, and he hasn't been this chirpy in Shield games. I was hard on him because it just seemed too much and now, we are here.

When he made his debut for New South Wales nearly two years ago he was technically very good, even in the Under 19 World Cup he was batting correctly, from Boxing Day on he has lost the plot and now he's changed his stance and was well outside off stump in the second innings. His whole set of stumps was exposed.

They didn't take him to Sri Lanka now take him to the West Indies and he leaves there with a Test average now of 18 and we are starting a summer again without a set opening combination.

How hasn't Michael di Venuto helped him or fixed things? Just keep chucking him in the deep end. McDonald defended him post Boxing Day and now he's completely off the rails.

Maybe they have, when he ramped Boland in the first over against Victoria, I know the Blues coaches were unhappy with him. But he hasn't listened.

He's going to have WA away, Victoria away, Queensland away and Victoria home to sort it out before the Ashes.

I find this whole thing very interesting and how it's handled could determine his next couple of years.
 
1910 said:
His unravelling from Boxing Day on has been unbelievable. I said at the time this wasn't how he has been batting, and he hasn't been this chirpy in Shield games. I was hard on him because it just seemed too much and now, we are here.

When he made his debut for New South Wales nearly two years ago he was technically very good, even in the Under 19 World Cup he was batting correctly, from Boxing Day on he has lost the plot and now he's changed his stance and was well outside off stump in the second innings. His whole set of stumps was exposed.

They didn't take him to Sri Lanka now take him to the West Indies and he leaves there with a Test average now of 18 and we are starting a summer again without a set opening combination.

How hasn't Michael di Venuto helped him or fixed things? Just keep chucking him in the deep end. McDonald defended him post Boxing Day and now he's completely off the rails.

Maybe they have, when he ramped Boland in the first over against Victoria, I know the Blues coaches were unhappy with him. But he hasn't listened.

He's going to have WA away, Victoria away, Queensland away and Victoria home to sort it out before the Ashes.

I find this whole thing very interesting and how it's handled could determine his next couple of years.
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He needs to be removed from the limelight, he's unpickable right now. Not only did he bat terribly, he dropped catches. He is too young to handle this kind of pressure. Let him go back and work on his game. Trial Jewell and Kellaway, let them have a shot and let Konstas earn it again.
 
Hopefully Marnus has a strong start to the Shield and makes it a simple decision.
 
He's just another Fraser-McGurk. His entire red ball career has 1 good game in it. He's not a test opener, and shouldn't be looked at again until he averages 40+ in consecutive years with multiple hundreds
 
BooKhaki said:
He's just another Fraser-McGurk. His entire red ball career has 1 good game in it. He's not a test opener, and shouldn't be looked at again until he averages 40+ in consecutive years with multiple hundreds
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Of course, this is what you always want to see. The problem is, how many even experienced players are averaging over 40 right now in Shield cricket?

I’ll tel you: Khawaja, Smith, Labushagne, Green, Green (believe it or not), Davies, Connolly, Head, Handscomb. That’s it.

And the bigger issue, aside from Khawaja (who is on his last legs) and Labushagne (who just got dropped), no one else who bats in the top three in domestic cricket averages over 40. It’s dire right now.

The two best options right now are Jewell and Kellaway and neither of them average 40 but had a really decent FC season last year. Weatherald is the other but none of these three are consistent.

The best looking batsman from a technique point of view aside from Labs in domestic top three is…McSweeney.

The other one who looks easy on the eye is Connolly but he bats lower middle order.

So the issue is obvious.
 
Sproj said:
Of course, this is what you always want to see. The problem is, how many even experienced players are averaging over 40 right now in Shield cricket?

I’ll tel you: Khawaja, Smith, Labushagne, Green, Green (believe it or not), Davies, Connolly, Head, Handscomb. That’s it.

And the bigger issue, aside from Khawaja (who is on his last legs) and Labushagne (who just got dropped), no one else who bats in the top three in domestic cricket averages over 40. It’s dire right now.

The two best options right now are Jewell and Kellaway and neither of them average 40 but had a really decent FC season last year. Weatherald is the other but none of these three are consistent.

The best looking batsman from a technique point of view aside from Labs in domestic top three is…McSweeney.

The other one who looks easy on the eye is Connolly but he bats lower middle order.

So the issue is obvious.
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Oh it's definitely not an easy fix. I genuinely have no ****ing idea what the answer is, but I know it's not currently Konstas. I'd likely look to Marnus at opener for the Ashes.
 
I actually applaud Australia for making a brave call on a young batter. It is something we don't usually do. We've seen how successful Jaiswal has been for India. Sometimes you just got to give them a go.

However, you also need to know when to cut them and let them build their game again in Shield cricket.
 
Mister Wright said:
I actually applaud Australia for making a brave call on a young batter. It is something we don't usually do. We've seen how successful Jaiswal has been for India. Sometimes you just got to give them a go.

However, you also need to know when to cut them and let them build their game again in Shield cricket.
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Yeah I agree, I think it was worth a shot and it did pay off in a huge series against India. But he's far too loose at this stage, and looks like a disaster waiting to happen in the field.

Usman is probably gonna be a problem this summer too. He's turning 39 and unsurprisingly looking past it against fast bowling, and Archer is terrific against left handers.
 
Issue with Marnus are the pace bowlers with serious speed.

Against bowlers sub-142kph he's alright, but when it bumps up to 145kph his technique can't keep up.

It's like there's just not enough seriously fast bowlers running around anymore... back when Shoaib and Lee burst onto the scene it seemed like every team was out there trying to find their own guy that could bowl 150kph.

But it became so common that batsmen started adapting to that pace and was able to score off them... guys bowling 145 looked pedestrian to guys that were used to belting 150 to the boundary.

Over the last little bit now things have changed back to medium pace 137-140kph with seam and swing and hitting the top of off... but it seems somewhat rare to find guys consistently getting over 142kph now, so when one does pop up they are a serious change up to what they're used to and they're constantly getting beaten for pace.

England will be coming over with Wood and now Jofra who can bowl serious heat.

Australian coaching need to turn up the speed on the ball machine and get these guys used to facing 145-150 kph again.
 
I agree, was worth giving Konstas a shot. If he failed, it wasn't likely a huge issue given WI's batting is absolutely atrocious. How bad Konstas went though in my opinion is really sad though but offset to an extent by Green being pretty impressive at 3 in my opinion, that's a nice little find from this tour. He didn't score any tons but man, those conditions all tour were heavily bowler favoured and he got a couple of nice 40s and 50.

@BooKhaki I think Labs back into open is likely and hard to argue. I'm hoping Kellaway though continues his strong back end last year, he looks really promising, more technically correct than Konstas currently.
 
BroncsFan said:
Issue with Marnus are the pace bowlers with serious speed.

Against bowlers sub-142kph he's alright, but when it bumps up to 145kph his technique can't keep up.

It's like there's just not enough seriously fast bowlers running around anymore... back when Shoaib and Lee burst onto the scene it seemed like every team was out there trying to find their own guy that could bowl 150kph.

But it became so common that batsmen started adapting to that pace and was able to score off them... guys bowling 145 looked pedestrian to guys that were used to belting 150 to the boundary.

Over the last little bit now things have changed back to medium pace 137-140kph with seam and swing and hitting the top of off... but it seems somewhat rare to find guys consistently getting over 142kph now, so when one does pop up they are a serious change up to what they're used to and they're constantly getting beaten for pace.

England will be coming over with Wood and now Jofra who can bowl serious heat.

Australian coaching need to turn up the speed on the ball machine and get these guys used to facing 145-150 kph again.
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They also bat really deep but if...a big if...the bats can get through their heat, they have a massive weakness with their spinner. Bashir is useless and there are hundreds runs there if they can wear out their very good pace bowling attack.
 
Sproj said:
They also bat really deep but if...a big if...the bats can get through their heat, they have a massive weakness with their spinner. Bashir is useless and there are hundreds runs there if they can wear out their very good pace bowling attack.
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I reckon they'll go in with Root and Bethel as the spinners. Bethel batting at 8 is a lot of batting.
 
Fernando said:
I reckon they'll go in with Root and Bethel as the spinners. Bethel batting at 8 is a lot of batting.
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Yeah they might, they did that in NZ. If they keep persisting with Crawley at opener as they keep doing for some reason, they need to lengthen the batting because I have absolutely no idea how he has played almost 60 tests with an average just over 30 and constantly coming down.

Of course he will probably bat like a bloke averaging 80 when he comes here.
 
Our opening options are dire. Maybe Harris deserves another go given his FC form, but his test performances were obviously terrible.
 
Battler said:
Our opening options are dire. Maybe Harris deserves another go given his FC form, but his test performances were obviously terrible.
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I'm sure the side will never be desperate enough to go back to Harris or Bancroft, they're done.
 
He has 2 fc tons I just don’t see where the fascination to begin with was. Great player, especially for his age but he was not Australian test match opener material. Look it’s a disgrace that nobody in this country is good enough to open the batting but a middle order batsman with no test cricket experience and a 19 year old were most definitely not the way to go.

Khawaja has no place being in this team anymore but he will be so not point debating it. I think we have a perfectly capable opener in Travis Head but we have been too scared to move him. I think he is a perfectly good 6 and a perfectly good opener. Probably wouldn’t bag him in the 3 or 4 but he is capable there as well. I just don’t understand how for the betterment of the team he is just kept at 5. Did it not make way more sense to play someone like McSweeney who had been in great form in multiple formats for multiple seasons at 5 where he would be more comfortable and move Head to opener where he has killed it in Test cricket as well as nearly being the best white ball opener in the world when he plays there in short format. Just makes no sense to me. This team is far stronger with him at opener and a McSweeney, Sangha, Inglis or heck even Green when Labuschagne was still at 3. Like had Labs been in form what were they going to do chucking Green back at 6?? Surely not. Just don’t understand why Head is so rostered on at 5 when the team can be far better balanced with him elsewhere. Also is not capable of making runs at 5 overseas so it leaves us short any time we tour.

1. Khawaja
2. Head
3. Green
4. Smith
5. McSweeney
6. Webster
7. Carey

For mine Josh Inglis isn’t a good enough stand alone batsman to really be anywhere above 6 at Test level.

Caleb Jewell is someone that interests me but he would need one hell of a start to shield to get a debut in the ashes.

Sangha needs more than a decent season to prove to anyone he has turned a corner enough for test cricket. His fall from grace was diabolical.
 
Jewell got a double ton in the English FC and has a few other 50s and 100s this year, he's going great.
 
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