Australia’s head coach, Andrew McDonald, stated that Indian players frightened Sam Konstas after Jasprit Bumrah dismissed Usman Khawaja on the final ball of the day during the Sydney Test. At present, Australia holds a 2-1 lead in the Border Gavaskar Trophy and is just one win away from clinching a place in the World Test Championship final.
On Friday, following India’s dismissal for 185 runs in Sydney, Australia batted momentarily before the umpires ended the day. The visitors had requested an additional over in hopes of taking a couple of wickets to conclude the day positively. However, Usman Khawaja seemed to stall by taking his guard. Bumrah appeared clearly irritated, and Sam Konstas, at the non-striker’s end, intervened, resulting in a brief exchange of words between himself and Bumrah.
The situation escalated when Bumrah took Khawaja’s wicket on the last ball of the day, directing a stare at Konstas during his cool celebration, which heightened tensions. McDonald later checked in on Konstas, inquiring if he was alright, as he found the Indian players’ celebration to be intimidating. “My conversation to him (Konstas) was just around whether he’s okay. Clearly, the way that India celebrated that was quite intimidating,” said McDonald.
He continued, “It’s clearly within the Laws of the Game, within the rules and regulations – there have been no charges laid. But to have an opposition obviously swarm the non-striker like that – we’ve got a duty of care to our player to ensure he’s okay and in the right mindset to go out the next day and perform. So that’s all those conversations were. ”
The ICC is not believed to be pursuing any charges or Code of Conduct violations against India in relation to this incident. McDonald remarked, “It’s clear that it’s acceptable because there were no fines or punishments. I’ll leave that to the ICC and obviously Andy Pycroft being the match referee and the umpires out there. If they felt that it was satisfactory, then I suppose that’s the benchmark we’re playing amongst. “
