‘Play like you do when you’re a kid in backyard’

With the Australian team management picking up 19-year-old youngster Sam Konstas in their squad for the Boxing Test match against India in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at Melbourne, Australian skipper Pat Cummins has put his faith in the youngster. Cummins, who had made his debut in South Africa in 2011, remembered days prior to his debut and told Sam Konstas to ‘enjoy the moment’.
“I think you always want to do well (but) I was saying this to Sam (Sam Konstas) the other day, I remember that as an 18-year-old, I was thinking I got a lot more leeway because I was young. It almost felt like if I didn’t have a great game, it wasn’t my fault. It was the selectors’ fault for picking me. I was like, ‘Well, they’re the idiots who picked an 18-year-old’. You’re so young starting out your career (and) it’s Boxing Day. It doesn’t get any better than this, so just enjoy the moment,” Pat Cummins told the media ahead of the Boxing Day Test.
The 19-year-old opener has made his way into the Australian Test squad after the exclusion of Nathan McSweeney. While McSweeney could only manage 72 runs in six innings in the three Tests in the series, Australia’s constant struggles at the top led them to call up Sam Konstas. The 19-year-old has so far played in 11 First Class matches in his career amassing 718 runs. Last week, the youngster also became the youngest player to hit a half-century on debut in Big Bash League. Cummins believes that the young opener will have to deal with the call up coming up so early in his career and the team has been backing him up. The pacer had a talk with Sam Konstas and shared how he talked about his early inclusion in the game too in South Africa. “It’s pretty awesome. I spent a bit of the time wondering why or how I was there (because) it happened so quickly. I just remember being really excited and I think, 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. You just want to take the game on and have fun and … not overthink it. So that’s the message of Sam. That’s definitely how I felt as an 18-year-old. I was just really excited. And once the kind of game started, you go into game mode and it’s just like any other game,” Pat Cummins added.
Sam Konstas became the youngest player since Ricky Ponting’s feat in 1993 to hit two centuries in a Sheffield Shield match when he hit a century against South Australia in a Sheffield Shield match early this year. Cummins too had spent time with Sam Konstas during the domestic one-day Cup, which has been named after late Australian cricketer Dean Jones. “He didn’t play, but he was down there, so I spent a bit of time with him (and) he was great. He was quite relaxed and good fun. (He was) happy to … roll along with the jokes and take the mickey out of himself and others. We will just always encourage him to be himself. But he seems … like he’s got a good head on his shoulders for a 19-year-old, so we’re there backing him up,” recalled Pat Cummins.

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