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Gautam Gambhir said cricket is a game for ‘tough men’ and Konstas and Australia are wrong to expect anything else.
Jasprit Bumrah and Sam Konstas were seen having a verbal exchange at the final minutes of the first day’s play. (Image: AP)
Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir has rejected his Australian counterpart Andrew McDonald’s claim that Jasprit Bumrah and Co. deliberately ‘intimidated’ young opening batter Sam Konstas. He said cricket is a sport for ‘tough men’ and Konstas had ‘no right’ to speak to Bumrah when the Indian was in discussion with Usman Khawaja.
It happened on the first day of the final Test of the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy at the Syndey Cricket Ground (SCG). Bumrah was unhappy with Khawaja’s attempt to slow things down just before Stumps and Konstas tried to intervene from the non-striker’s end. Annoyed, Bumrah walked towards him and the argument heated up before the umpires stopped them.
“Look it’s a tough sport played by tough men,” Gambhir said in the post-series press conference. “You can’t be that soft, as simple as it gets. I don’t think there was anything intimidating about that. He had no right to be talking to Jasprit Bumrah when Usman Khawaja was taking time, he had no right, no business to be involved. That was the job of the umpire and the guy who was batting (Khawaja).”
McDonald on Saturday said he had to check on Konstas if he was ‘okay’ and in the right mental space to play further. He even suggested the ICC had ‘set the benchmark’ by not punishing the Indians for what he clearly felt was intimidation.
“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.
On Sunday, McDonald became the first Australian coach in eight years to win a Border-Gavaskar Trophy while Gambhir became the first Indian coach to lose it in the same period.
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Sydney, Australia
