Former Aussie captain Allan Border remains disappointed by the decision to leave out youngster Sam Konstas for the opening test of the Australia tour of Sri Lanka 2025.
The legend feels overcoming Jasprit Bumrah‘s firepower in his debut series against India deserves some reward. The Indian spearhead was unsettled during his first test innings after replacing Nathan McSweeney in Melbourne with some impressive knocks.
Australia preferred Travis Head to open the innings in Sri Lanka with Konstas finding no place in the playing 11.
Allan Borer feels that Australia missed out on giving Konstas exposure to the spinning conditions and slow bowlers, given he is part of their plans.
“I thought he got through that pretty well… he’s part of the future so why leave him out at this stage. You pick a young guy, he’s got through the baptism of fire with Bumrah… it was very difficult times for top of the order players.”
“To leave him out considering you need to get experience in those conditions to understand the turning ball… you can’t learn that in the nets. They missed an opportunity to keep him in the side but it all worked.”
However, the movement of the Travis Head worked out perfectly for the tourists as he slammed 57 runs off 40 deliveries and shared a 92-run opening stand with Usman Khawaja.
Border was all praises for the selectors for giving an opportunity to Josh Inglis, who smashed a century on his test debut after scoring heaps in first-class cricket.
“You got to tip your hat to the selectors. The debutant situation where you get a hundred on debut was fantastic.”
“Josh (Inglis) played really well and deserved his time in there to have a crack because he’s been dominating (Sheffield) Shield, I just thought the Konstas thing was an odd one.”
Australia set a massive tournament of 654/6 before declaring their innings on day 02 with a Usman Khawaja’s double century and centuries from Steve Smith and Josh Inglis.
