Konstas’ small shimmy is the fruit of plenty of indoor sessions at home in Sydney with his personal batting coach Tahmid Islam, allied to the feedback he received from senior Australian players and coaches on tour.
Konstas cobbled a mere 50 runs in six innings at an average of 8.33 in the Caribbean. It was the slimmest aggregate for an Australian opener in more than 40 years across a series of three Tests or more.
Upon Konstas’ return to the indoor nets, the addition of the trigger movement was geared at making him a little more dynamic at the crease, after his static appearances previously.
Against bowlers of high pace in particular, a pre-ball movement can give a batter more of a chance to play effectively in both attack and defence. For Konstas, it should also allow him to cope more comfortably with balls moving in at him seeking stumps and pads – the common area targeted by international opponents thus far.
Australian head coach Andrew McDonald alluded to “new movement patterns” in discussing Konstas’ century in Lucknow on Wednesday.
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“Any time that you get space and time to work on your game and then to be able to execute that straight away with a century in an intra-squad [match] … and then an Australia-A contest in foreign conditions [gets you] that immediate feedback [that] what you’ve been working on can work,” McDonald told SEN.
“To come from the West Indies, to go away, work on your game [and have] that winter investment, [and] get [an] immediate return, I think gives a lot of confidence. A lot of our game is about confidence and believing in what you’re doing. Now it’s the ability to sustain that.
“Oppositions will look at it, critique it, they’ll work out ways to potentially pick holes in some potential new movement patterns that are there. There’s debate around whether exposing young batters too early potentially can damage across a journey. I think match experience gives you great learning space and the ability to go from game to game against quality opponents.”
Konstas made his century for Australia A in the company of young Victorian opener Campbell Kellaway, who made his own mark with a fluent 88 in conditions that aided seam bowlers early on before flattening out.
“[I’m] very happy – it’s good spending time in the middle,” Konstas said after his hundred. “I had to face quite a few demons, mentally, just trying to get through that – just different challenges and trying to adapt to the conditions. [I’m] super stoked and hopefully I can build on from that.
“Early on it had a bit of nip and just trying to get through that, and then spin-wise it didn’t spin as much, so [I was] just backing my instincts and trying to repeat each ball with my process.”
In Lucknow, Australia A capitalised on Konstas’ century to rattle to 6-532 declared on day two, with wicketkeeper Josh Phillipe cracking an unbeaten 123 from just 87 balls.
