Australia’s legendary captain Allan Border did not mince words as he criticised 20-year-old Sam Konstas' shot selection and over-reliance on ramp shot irrespective of the format. Konstas burst into the scene as he played unorthodox shots against India’s pace-bowling spearhead Jasprit Bumrah on Test debut. But, after the fifty in debut innings, he has had a downward spiral in Test arena. On A team tours and in domestic cricket, Konstas has employed the ramp shot but he has lost his wickets attempting it as well. The most recent example of it was in Australia’s One-Day domestic competition against Victoria's Cameron McClure.
Border wants Konstas to curb his urge to play the ramp shot early in his innings. He also wonders whether the youngster can play a cover drive.
"Sam Konstas, I've only ever seen him play a ramp shot," Border said on SEN. "Can he cover drive or anything like that? We just haven't seen anything but constantly trying to play this bloody ramp shot. It's a handy shot to have in the kit bag, but I'd be leaving it there for a while until I've got a few on the board first."
What’s Border’s advice to Konstas?
Former Australia wicketkeeper-batter Ian Healy came to Border's rescue on the same show. Healy said that the youngster is capable of playing traditional shots as well. Then Border was asked to give advice to Konstas. He said that he can't give him a specific advice but to shelve the ramp shot until settled at the crease. He also said that he has heard good things about the opener but is yet to see it on the big stage.
"It's hard to tell people how to bat specifically, but I'd be saying 'just shelve the ramp shot, just give yourself a chance to get yourself in and just conventionally playing'. If your innings develops, yes you play however you want to," he said.
"There's lots of ways to make Test match runs. He's good enough from what I'm hearing, but I just haven't seen it yet."
Konstas’ recent form far from promising
Konstas' previous century in red-ball cricket came against India A previous month. Since coming back to Australia, he has scored 123 runs from six innings in the red-ball format. In his previous first-class appearance, he was nicely setup by Scott Boland for a four-ball duck. He followed it up with a gritty 53 in a losing cause.