Konstas craving has Sam failed again

PL reports live from the 2nd Test

Things are grim and getting grimmer for Sam Konstas and Australia’s plans for England this summer. The teenager selectors had hoped would bear the burden of opening in the Ashes was bowled for a duck four balls into the fourth innings of his recall.

Konstas’s off-balance and hurried attempt at a cut to a short, wide delivery from Jayden Seales was an act of self-harm that places even more pressure on his inexperienced shoulders with one Test left before the big series at home. This plane is in a nose dive that’s going to take some correcting.

The 19-year-old hung his head after seeing the ball cannon from the bottom of his bat into the stumps late on the second day.

Selectors and coaches have begged for patience, but there’s a crisis on the near horizon if he cannot turn this around in the next two innings. He’s not written off yet, but he is on life support and the vital signs are fading. Any top-order player who can stand up in the two Australia A first-class games in Darwin later this month and the early Sheffield Shield rounds will have a good chance to walk out in the first Test at Perth.

Konstas, who burst onto the stage with a spectacular half-century on Boxing Day, has scores of 3, 5, 25 and 0 since returning to the team.

Usman Khawaja (2) fell soon after, trapped on the crease by a delivery that kept low, as many had as the game progressed. His decision to review the ball that was crashing into the middle and leg was hopeful at best.

The Australians had looked likely to take a serviceable first-innings lead when they had the West Indies 7-174 chasing 286, but the lower order had swung freely and then clung grimly to what little life was left and got their score to 254.

Konstas and Khawaja had made their way to the middle at 5 pm with half an hour to play. The light was not great, but not excuse enough. Pat Cummins sent out night watchman Nathan Lyon whose attempt to fend off a short ball with his shoulder resulted in a break for treatment that ate up enough time to get the team through to the end of play at 2-12.

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE OUTFIELD

Out here, on this southernmost of the Windward Islands, the cricket, like life, is muddling along at a carefree pace. After lunch on the second day, a black dog wandered, unmolested and unhurried, across the playing field before the drone shooed it to an exit near the Australian dressing rooms. Ignoring the nearby fire hydrant, it cocked its leg on the tyre of some sort of broadcast equipment and then languidly made its back into the stands and out of sight.

Good dog.

While you’ve slept over the past week or two, the Australians, as if corporate employees on the best-ever off-site team bonding exercise, are workshopping the new brand before its unveiling on the big stage.

The locals, modest of ambition, are doing their best to make life difficult for a more well-resourced opposition who’ve lorded it over them for years.