The 2025-26 edition of the Ashes series between Australia and England will kick off on November 21. The series opener is scheduled to take place at Optus Stadium in Perth, and the next four matches will be played in Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Ahead of the high-voltage series in Australia, former Australian opener David Warner was asked about his pick for the role of opening batters for the hosts.
Since Warner’s retirement, Aussies have tried Steve Smith, Nathan McSweeney, Marnus Labuschagne, Travis Head and Sam Konstas as openers, but none of them really manage to fill the void left by the left-handed batter from New South Wales.
But for the big series in front of home fans, Warner wants Australia to continue with Konstas at the top
of the batting order and move Labuschagne back to his usual No. 3 position.
Konstas made a rocking Test debut for Australia in Melbourne last year against India, but the right-handed batter failed to do much with the bat in the three-match series in the West Indies this year.
“I’m 100% unavailable. Marnus (Labuschagne) has obviously come out of the blocks very well. He scored 100 in the Shield and backed it up in the one-day game. I think when you’ve got a lot of Test cricket under your belt, you know what he’s capable of and know what he can do,” Warner told reporters.
“If someone’s averaging 50 in Test cricket, you’ve probably got to go back to that. Does he open? I wouldn’t like to see him open. I’d like him to shuffle back down to three,” he added.
“That just opens up who else goes where. That’s a tough one to see an Australian selector is going to have to do. Young Sam Konstas, he scored that 100 in the Australian A-Series. I thought he batted outstanding there. I don’t think we’ve seen exactly what we know Sam Konstas can do. I think last year coming out, he probably got overwhelmed by the occasion, and we saw some very highlighted cricket.”
According to Warner, he has seen Konstas play some fantastic innings, and he would like to see him doing that again.
“I’ve seen him build innings. I’ve seen him play some fantastic innings. I’d like to see him go back to just doing that. They don’t have a Jasprit Bumrah, so he doesn’t have to worry about that. They’ve got some fast bowlers, but he can tackle that. I’d like them to try and probably stick with Sam and give him a crack. At the end of the day, I know it’s a short-term fix if they want to try and find someone else. I know they were mentioning Mitch Marsh and Josh Inglis, but yet again, there’s no reason why Sam Konstas can’t do that role.”
