It has been noted that Konstas was beaten on multiple occasions this year at the under-19s World Cup by deliveries moving back at him, something Watson was confident he would overcome.

“This is the perfect opportunity to blood Sam or someone like Sam because you have an ageing team. With Cam Green missing this summer, for me, it’s just a perfect opportunity.”

Shane Watson

“He’s a very quick learner, and facing Scott Boland in that four-day game, he’s so good, so accurate, asking questions every single ball,” Watson said.

“So for Sam to learn and make that adjustment from innings to innings shows he is working through ‘why and how did I get out and what can I do to give myself the best chance’.

“That innings he played to get through that spell from Scott is a great testament to where his game is at. All batters have a little weakness here and there, and the biggest challenge is clearing your mind and reacting to the ball coming down. When you do that, you have the best chance to negate what the bowlers are trying to expose.

“This is the perfect opportunity to blood Sam or someone like Sam because you have an ageing team. With Cam Green missing this summer, for me, it’s just a perfect opportunity.”

In January, Watson was an advocate for Steve Smith moving up the order to replace Warner, an experiment that lasted four Test matches before the former captain was asked if he wanted to move back down the order and he responded in the affirmative. Watson believes the sea change, though temporary, can help to resharpen Smith’s game at 35.

“With Steve it was an opportunity for him to feel like he had a new challenge. Batting at four where he was, you could see he wasn’t getting a lot of big opportunities to build those big innings because Dave Warner, Usman [Khawaja] and Marnus [Labuschagne] had been scoring so many runs in the top three. So I absolutely understand why Steve wanted to do it.

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“What we saw with Steve at the back end of the summer was he was just a little bit off. He was mis-hitting some balls he normally wouldn’t, and that for me is a sign something was off. We know as an opening batter when the ball is moving around, it makes it more challenging if you’re slightly off and not executing like Steve normally does.

“But seeing him bat in the MLC [in the USA], Steve was at his best. It wouldn’t surprise me to see him scoring a lot of runs this summer.”