Sam Konstas’ flatulence wasn’t on anyone’s Ashes squad announcement bingo card when head selector George Bailey fronted a press conference on the Gold Coast on Wednesday.

“I feel for Sammy,” Bailey told reporters, just minutes after informing the 20-year-old batsman he had been axed from the Australian Test team ahead of the opening Ashes clash in Perth in 16 days’ time.

Sam Konstas. Credit: Getty Images for Cricket Australia

“I feel like at the moment, if he farts, it’s a headline.”

Since Boxing Day last year, when he blazed 60 off 65 balls and ramped India’s Jasprit Bumrah like it was a game of backyard cricket, Konstas has been a lightning rod for attention.

There has been no shortage of headlines, but the clicks tell the story – Australia remains fascinated by Konstas and whether he’ll ever live up to the hype.

Scores of 4, 14, 0, 53, 10 and 41 – at an average of 20.33 from three Sheffield Shield matches for NSW – on top of 50 runs in six Test innings in the Caribbean, gave selectors little choice but to omit him from a 15-man Ashes squad, foreshadowed by this masthead, that includes a fresh face in 31-year-old Tasmanian opener Jake Weatherald.

The intensity and spotlight of an Ashes opener was deemed too great a risk for a prodigious cricketer still........

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