Sam Konstas says Virat Kohli wished him well after the Boxing Day Test in which the two collided, and that the shoulder bump was simply “part of the game.” The 20-year-old opener spoke to the Times of India while touring India with Australia A.
He is there trying to win back a Test place in a side still searching for a settled opener after David Warner.
“He just shouldered me and then we moved on. It’s all part of the game. After the match, he wished me all the best for the future.”
Sam Konstas, speaking to the Times of India during Australia A’s tour of India, September 2026
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The cameras caught the collision. What they could not show is what that contact is built to do to a teenage opener between overs, and why “we moved on” is harder than it sounds.
The incident came on 26 December 2024 at the MCG, on Konstas’s Test debut. At the end of the 10th over, Kohli walked into the 19-year-old and bumped his shoulder. Konstas went on to make 60, reaching fifty in 52 balls.
Kohli admitted a Level 1 breach of the ICC Code of Conduct. Match referee Andy Pycroft fined him 20% of his match fee and handed him one demerit point.
That debut is still Konstas’s best day in Test cricket.
| Konstas since the MCG | |
|---|---|
| Tests played | 5 |
| Test average | 16.30 |
| Highest score | 60 (debut) |
| Last Test | July 2025, vs West Indies in Barbados |
| 2025-26 Ashes | Not picked |
| 2026-27 central contract | Not offered |
| 1st unofficial Test, Puducherry | 25 off 76 balls |
Chief selector George Bailey described the Australia A squad as players in contention for the five-Test series in India in early 2027. For Konstas, this tour is an audition.
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The end of an over is when an opener resets. Gloves off, a breath, a look around the field, mind cleared for the next six balls. Contact at that moment is not about the shoulder. It is about stealing the reset and making a teenager bat the next over angry instead of clear.
Konstas answered in the only way that counts, with runs. Twenty-one months on, “part of the game” is how a player tells you it never got inside his head. It is not the same as saying it did not matter. Nobody forgets the first time a great of the game walks into them on debut.
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