Konstas's duck ends a disappointing second coming

PL on testing times amid Sabina Park pink ball chaos

The roller coaster ride that is pink ball cricket continued on day two with Australia’s 82 run first innings lead looking alarmingly thin as the visitors again found themselves like deers in the headlights in the last session. The West Indies quicks created havoc, reducing the team to 6-69. At close of play Australia is 6-99, a lead of 181 mainly thanks to the extraordinary defiance of Cameron Green who has made great strides in this series. Green’s undefeated 42 along with his 46 in the first innings, have been invaluable. He and Pat Cummins (5no) will recommence on the third day.

The odds of Sam Konstas’s chances of playing the first Ashes Test are as long as his last innings in the West Indies.

The second coming has not provided the same rapture as the first. The water-to-wine miracle performed by the boy prophet at the MCG proved unrepeatable. Selectors and fans would have been satisfied with a humble loaves and fishes routine, but in a series where returns have been thin, his have been anorexic.

Konstas, who was dropped three times in the series, made 50 runs from six innings at an average of 8.33. Patience was called for, patience was given, but patience has run out.

Konstas was bowled for a duck in the second over of Australia’s second inings.

Even in the context of a series where the highest score is 75, it is a struggle to take anything positive from this experience. Should he go home and pile on the first-class runs, there may be a case for recall, but if there’s any doubt, it is hard to see the selectors risking further exposure so soon after this trial.

Sorry, Sammy, it’s time to go away, lick your wounds and find a way to make things work when the game is at its toughest. The best have been there. Phillip Hughes started with an even bigger bang than Konstas, but not that long after was sent to rehab. Michael Clarke travelled a similar route. Pup scored that big century on debut, another against New Zealand, but was dropped the following summer. Neither, however, flared out as quickly as the teenager.

Usman Khawaja’s 117 runs at 19.5 might in any other context be considered terminal, but veterans get more rope, and the 39-year-old brings the sort of experience selectors would favour coming into a summer like the Ashes. The last thing they want to do is find two new openers between now and the first Test of the Ashes.

Pink ball Tests bring a degree of chaos to the oldest form of the game that seems more befitting T20 than the five-day format.

The difference between the night and day times is so dramatic that it has added a dynamic to the game, perhaps only possible in a previous era when uncovered pitches meant conditions could change so radically.

It’s so dramatic, frankly, that it’s time to question whether this is a good thing for Test cricket. The night session and who has to endure turns cricket into a crap shoot. It’s exciting, but in that confected way reality shows manufacture drama.