Australia head coach Andrew McDonald has accused India of trying to intimidate youngster Sam Konstas in the dying stages of day 1 of the SCG Test on Friday, January 4.
Konstas was involved in a heated exchange with Bumrah after the bowler was unhappy that Usman Khawaja took a long time to get ready to face the balls. After bowling four deliveries, Bumrah wanted to complete the over quickly to allow for another over and a potential wicket.
However, as Bumrah felt unhappy with Khawaja's act, Konstas interfered as he had an exchange with the stand-in India captain Bumrah. Two balls later, Bumrah nicked out Khawaja's slips as the whole Indian team celebrated in the face of Konstas.
Australian coach said that he had a chat with Konstas and believed that the visitors were trying to intimidate the youngster. "My conversation with him was around whether he's okay. Clearly, the way India celebrated that was quite intimidating," McDonald said.
"It's clearly within the laws of the game, the rules and regulations. There's been no charges laid, but to have an opposition swarm the non-striker like that, we've got a duty of care to our player to make sure he's okay and in a headspace to go out there and perform," he added.
McDonald was asked about whether the Indian team went too far in their celebration. "It's clear that's acceptable because there was no fines or punishments, so I'll leave that up the ICC - Andy Pycroft being the match referee - and the umpires out there. If they thought it was satisfactory then I suppose that's the benchmark we are playing towards," he said.
