Adam Gilchrist has severely criticized Australia for resorting to tactics deemed "negative and illegal" as per the cricketing rule book on day three of the ongoing Perth Test between the hosts and India.
Gilchrist and the former England captain Michael Vaughan slammed Australia for not showing character as India piled on the pain towards the end of their second innings on day three at the Optus Stadium.
Notably, Marnus Labuschagne was brought into the attack by skipper Pat Cummins and the former started bowling outside of Virat Kohli and Nitish Reddy's leg stump to deny them scoring opportunities. Cummins packed the leg side with fielders stationed at the fence to put brakes on India's scoring rate.
However, to Australia's dismay, both Virat and Nitish still managed to thread the gaps on the leg side and even took the aerial route to make an absolute mockery of the strategy put in place.
"Have you ever seen such a despondent team of Australian cricketers, resorting to those tactics? What are deemed negative, illegal tactics really by the rulebook?" Gilchrist said on Fox Cricket.
"It's not something I've seen before from Australia," Vaughan echoed.
"I'm looking at this Australian side, they're a terrific side, and for whatever reason they bowl out India for 150, then only bat well enough to only get 104, and then with the ball in hand they had periods where they bowled nicely but that last half an hour is something I've not seen in Australia," Vaughan added.
"Every boundary rider was on the fence, Labuschagne's bowling around the wicket, he's bowling negatively."
India (Playing XI):
KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant(w), Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Reddy, Washington Sundar, Harshit Rana, Jasprit Bumrah(c), Mohammed Siraj
Australia (Playing XI):
Usman Khawaja, Nathan McSweeney, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Alex Carey(w), Pat Cummins(c), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood
