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Australia’s captain Pat Cummins genuinely believes that the naivety of youth will help 19-year-old Sam Konstas on the biggest possible Test debut stage against India’s spearhead Jasprit Bumrah on Boxing Day.
After all, Cummins should know. He was the previous teenage Test debutant for the Australian men’s team, in Johannesburg 13 years ago, and can remember hitting South Africa’s legendary fast man Dale Steyn back over his head with no worries about the consequences of a mistake.
Pat Cummins and Australia celebrate a wicket in his debut against South Africa in 2011.Credit: Getty
As he confirmed that his most dangerous batter Travis Head had been passed fit to play in the fourth Test of the Border-Gavaskar series, Cummins spoke with firsthand knowledge of what it feels like to play as a teenager.
“I spent a bit of time wondering why I was there, or how it happened so quickly,” Cummins said of 2011 at the Wanderers. “Similar to Sammy this week, there’s a level of naivety that you just want to go out and play like you do when you’re a kid in the backyard.
“In my debut I remember trying to hit Dale Steyn over his head for runs and I just thought that made sense at the time, but now I look back and think, ‘Geez I would’ve been crucified if that didn’t come off’.
“You just want to take the game on and have fun and not overthink it. That’s the message to Sam, and that’s definitely how I felt as an 18-year-old.”
Similarly to how a very different selection panel pitched Cummins in to face South Africa back then, the current decision-makers have decided that a younger, less-known quantity in Konstas has as much chance of helping Australia’s top order at the MCG as anyone more seasoned.
“I was saying to Sam the other day, I remember as an 18-year-old I was thinking I got a lot more leeway because I was young,” Cummins said. “I almost felt like if I didn’t have a great game, it wasn’t my fault, it was the selectors’ fault for picking me.
“It was like, ‘Well they’re the idiots that picked an 18-year-old’. You’re so young starting your career, it’s Boxing Day, it doesn’t get any better than this, so just enjoy the moment. There’s a lot of good and sometimes some clutter as well. I was thinking about someone like Usman’s twice his age down the other end, there’s so much value in having experience and you’ve seen everything before.
“But there’s almost as many positives in having that freedom and naivety just to go out and see the ball and hit the ball. So there is some benefit in that naivety.”
Sam Konstas at the team’s MCG training session on Christmas Day.Credit: Getty Images
Head completed some running drills on the MCG before being the last member of the team to bat in the nets on Christmas morning. Given his impact on this series, as the only Australian batter to show any kind of authority at the crease so far, there was little chance of Head not playing even if his mobility is somewhat restricted by what was eventually revealed to be a quad strain.
“He ticked off some final things today and yesterday, but no stress or worries about injury with Trav,” Cummins said. “I don’t think you’ll see too much management of him around the game, he just plays as is, but maybe around fielding if he’s a bit uncomfortable, we will.
“It feels like the last 12 months he’s been in this unbelievably vein of form and he just keeps going on with it. He’s hitting the ball really cleanly, you can see the pressure he shifts back onto the opposition literally from the first ball he walks out there.
“So I’m loving he’s in our team and I don’t have to try to set a field and bowl to him. But he’s hitting the ball as well as I’ve ever seen anyone, so long may it continue.”
Scott Boland is Australia’s other inclusion, at the expense of the injured Josh Hazlewood, but it always seemed likely that the MCG specialist would find a way to get into the team this week.
“He looks like he’s one of the best bowlers in the world basically whenever he plays, so we’re expecting the same,” Cummins said of Boland. “He loves bowling here, he’s played here more than anyone else in our team.”
As has become a tradition, match eve training was marked by the sight of plenty of children running amok on the MCG or even having a hit in the nets, where Cummins twirled down some gentle leg breaks.
“At the moment it’s chaos,” he said with a smile.
Travis Head will play on Boxing Day.Credit: Getty Images
“It feels like there’s probably two kids per person, so there’s about 30-40 kids running around between the staff and the players, and it’s great fun.
“We’ll go off to Christmas lunch after this, all the kids have got presents this morning and running around and hyper. So it’s absolute chaos, but it’s awesome.”
The weather
A forecast top of 39 degrees at the MCG may cause both captains to consider batting first should they win the toss.
The pitch
Cummins said curator Matt Page’s MCG surface was consistent with what he had produced over the past five years, offering plenty of bounce and carry with a modicum of seam movement. Ideal for Boland, in other words.
The teams
Australia: Pat Cummins (c), Sam Konstas, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Alex Carey, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Scott Boland.
India (possible): Rohit Sharma (c), K.L. Rahul, Yashavsi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, Nishant Kumar Reddy, Akash Deep, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj.
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