The way that India celebrated Khawaja’s dismissal was “quite intimidating” to Australian coach Andrew McDonald. (AP)
Days after Australian coach Andrew McDonald termed India’S celebration of Australian batter Usman Khawaja’s dismissal in front of 19-year-old youngster San Konstas as ‘quite intimidating’, former Australian cricketer Brad Hogg has termed the coach’s words as ‘taking it a little bit too far’. Indian captain Jasprit Bumrah had a heated exchange with Konstas post the dismissal of Khawaja on the opening day of the Sydney Test and Hogg raised his concerns over the Australian coach taking the aspect of mental issue in the episode.
“The coach coming out and saying that the Indian players were intimidating Konstas and there is a mental health issue there, I think that is taking it a little bit too far. If you want to say a few words to the opposition team, you want to hit balls for four, walk down and give the bowler a serve while he is walking back to the mark, you are going to have to sit there and cop it on the way back as well,” said Hogg while talking on his YouTube channel.
The incident happened on the penultimate delivery of the opening day with Khawaja taking some time to get ready at the striker’s end with Bumrah getting disturbed over the delay. Konstas, who was at the non-striker end, seemed to have uttered a few words to the Indian skipper. Bumrah then picked up the wicket of Khawaja off the next delivery and charged towards Konstas following the dismissal with Virat Kohli too joining the duo with some words exchanged. “The coach should not be talking about the Indian intimidation. The coach should be talking to his player about how he is going to handle the retaliation from the opposition team rather than defending him because if you want to give it out, you’ve got to take it back as well,” added Hogg.
Post the second day of the Test, McDonald had spoken about the issue. The coach had called out the incident and termed it as quite intimidating. “My conversation to him (Konstas) was just around whether he’s okay. Clearly, the way that India celebrated was quite intimidating. It’s clearly within the Laws of the Game, within the rules and regulations – there’s been no charges laid. But to have an opposition obviously swarm the non-striker like that – we’ve got a duty care to our player to make sure he’s okay and in a head space to go out the next day and perform. So that’s all those conversations were.” McDonald told reporters post the second day’s play.
Indian coach Gautam Gambhir had termed the incident as non-intimidating.
“Look, it’s a tough sport played by tough men. You can’t be that soft. That’s as simple as it can get. I don’t think there was anything intimidating about it,” Gambhir had said post India’s loss in Sydney.
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