Australia coach Andrew McDonald saw small signs of encouragement from Sam Konstas in the second Test against West Indies but has indicated there will "great opportunity" for players to push their case for Ashes selection early in the domestic season and in Australia A matches. Konstas made 25 in the first innings in Grenada before following that with a duck during a brief period of batting late on the second day.

He will play the final match at Sabina Park, the ground's first day-night Test, which provides an opportunity to finish on a high and leave himself near the head of the selection queue for the home Ashes series later in the year. "Four games in, eight innings, it's probably early for anyone to judge, really," McDonald said of Konstas' early Test career.

"I think the challenges in Test cricket aren't necessarily always your skill level or your technique. It's dealing with the moments, the pressure, all the other things that externally come with that as well. He's a player finding his feet in the environment."[It was] a small step forward in the last game with that first innings.

I thought the way he structured up his first 20-odd balls, he had the positive intent, he was moving a lot better compared to the game before where it looked like he was stuck in the middle and didn't know whether to play a shot and it was either ultra-aggressive or ultra-defensive." Konstas will likely feature in the four-day matches on the Australia A tour of India in late September before being available for the opening Sheffield Shield matches in early October with four rounds expected before the start of the Ashes. 

"There's great opportunity in domestic cricket at the start of the season, and there always is leading into any Test series," McDonald said. "We saw with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy last year, there was opportunity for players to put their hand up there. There's also Australia A [against Sri Lanka A] in the Top End [Darwin] at the moment, so we're watching that closely…so it's really about the opportunity that presents. 

"First and foremost, we concentrate on what's right here, right now. Everyone will be speculating around who can come in, what possibilities are, but we're confident the players that we've got here can do the job." Prior to the tour, McDonald said it may not be possible to draw huge relevance from this tour to the Ashes and it is a view he maintains despite it having been pace-bowler dominated rather than seeing a significant role for spin. 

"There's been a lot of variable bounce and sideways movement, so it's probably not similar to Australia," he said. "Maybe some surfaces will be. I think Perth potentially, when it does crack a little bit, it can go up and down and a little bit sideways. But I think the first four rounds of Shield cricket will draw a better connection to the Ashes than what we're seeing here.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)