The ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy has witnessed many moments that have created classical rivalries and intense scenarios. Of course, the moment that stands out from this series is “Sam Konstas vs Team India.”
Sam Konstas was an unexpected debutant in the ongoing series, replacing Nathan McSweeney in Australia’s playing XI for the Boxing Day Test match. He was introduced to counter Jasprit Bumrah, and so far, he has been impressive both with the bat and his passive gestures.
In the current Test match, during the second day of play, Konstas got involved in a verbal exchange with Jasprit Bumrah. The incident occurred during the last over of the day when Usman Khawaja was ensuring it would be the final over.
On the last ball of the over, Khawaja nicked the ball to slip off Bumrah’s bowling. Instead of celebrating the wicket together, the entire Indian team, including Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, and Bumrah, advanced toward Konstas with visible aggression.
After the game, Australia’s coach Andrew McDonald spoke to the 19-year-old to ensure his confidence remained intact.
“My conversation with him was around whether he’s okay. Clearly, the way India celebrated that was quite intimidating,” McDonald said. “It’s within the laws of the game, the rules, and regulations. There have been no charges laid, but to have an opposition swarm the non-striker like that, we have a duty of care to our player to make sure he’s okay and in a headspace to go out there and perform.”
When asked whether he felt India had gone too far, McDonald added: “It’s clear that’s acceptable because there were no fines or punishments. I’ll leave that up to 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.”
Konstas ended up scoring 23 runs in the first innings of the Test match before being dismissed by Mohammad Siraj. Bumrah, fielding at mid-on, did not run toward Siraj to celebrate but instead walked toward Konstas.
“We enjoy the way that he plays the game, and we also like to play the game aggressively,” Prasidh Krishna said after the second day’s play. “If we have somebody who comes up and says, ‘I can fight you,’ as a team, we want to tell them we are here, and you can’t take us for granted. We are all here – 11 of us versus you. If you can be aggressive, that’s fine.”
Nevertheless, Ricky Ponting expressed his disapproval of Konstas interrupting the conversation between Khawaja and Bumrah.
“I didn’t like Konstas getting involved,” he told Channel 7. “That was not his battle to fight; it was between Khawaja and Bumrah.
“So, for the young man there, I hope there was some talking-to from the Australian dressing room last night because he should have stayed out of it and let his senior player handle the last couple of balls.
“And of course, when you play with the game, the game has a way of coming back and biting you. That happened to Khawaja last night.”
It is worth mentioning that Sam Konstas was also shoulder-barged by Virat Kohli during his debut Test match.
