India head coach Gautam Gambhir has rejected claims made by his Australian counterpart Andrew McDonald that Jasprit Bumrah and co. deliberately ‘intimidated’ young opener Sam Konstas. Gambhir stressed cricket is a sport for “tough men” and Konstas had “no right” to speak to Bumrah when the seamer was in discussion with batter Usman Khawaja.
The incident happened on Day 1 of the fifth of the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG). Bumrah was left upset with Khawaja’s attempts to slow things down just before stumps. Even as Bumrah focused on Khawaja, Konstas, at the non-striker’s end, tried to get involved with words as well. Annoyed, Bumrah walked up to him before the umpires stepped in.
“It’s a tough sport played by tough men. He can’t be that soft. As simple as it can get. I don’t think there was anything intimidating about it,” said Gambhir on Sunday after Australia won by 6-wickets to clinch the series.
“He had no right to be talking to Jasprit Bumrah when Usman Khawaja was taking time. He had no right and no business to be involved with Jasprit Bumrah. That was the job of the umpire, probably the guy who was batting at the (other) end,” added Gambhir.
McDonald had claimed that he had to check on the teenager Konstas if he was ‘okay’ and in the right mental space to play on.
“My conversation with him was around whether he’s okay. Clearly, the way India celebrated that was quite intimidating,” McDonald had 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.”
“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 added.
