ICC has endorsed India 'intimidation' of Konstas: McDonald

Australia coach Andrew McDonald revealed he checked on the welfare of Sam Konstas after his latest run-in with India, suggesting the International Cricket Council has all but endorsed the visitors' "intimidation" of the teenage opener. 

The ICC are not believed to have laid any Code of Conduct charges after India captain Jasprit Bumrah angrily rounded on Konstas at the non-striker's end when he dismissed Usman Khawaja with the final ball of day one of the ongoing Sydney Test. 

Virat Kohli, who was fined 20 per cent of his match fee for bumping Konstas in the preceding Test in Melbourne, was among the fielders to charge in the 19-year-old's direction as he walked off the ground. 

Konstas had enraged Bumrah after directing some aggressive words towards the bowler in an attempt to stick up for Khawaja, who had been accused of time-wasting late in the day to ensure Australia did not have to face any further overs in the dying light.  

"My conversation to him (Konstas) was just around whether he's okay. Clearly, the way that India celebrated was quite intimidating," McDonald told reporters a day on from the incident.

"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."

Andy Pycroft, the ICC match referee who levelled the fine on Kohli in Melbourne, is also overseeing the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series finale.

"It's clear that it's acceptable because there were no fines or punishments," McDonald said.

"I'll leave that up to the ICC and obviously Andy Pycroft being the match referee and the umpires out there.

"If they thought that it was satisfactory, then I suppose that's the benchmark we're playing amongst."

India had earlier in the day been accused of time-wasting when Shubman Gill appeared to slow play down in the final over before lunch on Friday.

Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne were caught on stump microphones questioning why Gill wasn't facing up.

Gill reacted angrily, telling Smith he often used the same tactics, before running down the pitch and edging Nathan Lyon straight to Smith at slip the next delivery.

"It's quite standard. They tried it before lunch with Shubman Gill and he ended up getting out," Scott Boland told SEN before play on Saturday. "I felt like they were really slow throughout the whole day (one), it felt like the physio was on every two minutes."  

Prasidh Krishna was the Indian fielder closest to Konstas during the tense exchange with Bumrah, in which umpire Sharfuddoula Saikat was forced to intervene.

Krishna looked to have words with Konstas after the Australian's fiery exchange with Bumrah. Asked if the tyro right-hander had gotten under India's skin, the bowler said: "I don’t think so. Not yet. 

"We enjoy the way that he plays the game and we would also like to play the game aggressively,” Krishna continued on Saturday.

"Like if we have somebody who comes out and says, 'I can fight you,' it's as a team we want to tell them, 'you can't take us for granted, we are all here, the eleven of us versus you'.

"If you can be as aggressive, that's fine."

Former Test captain Ricky Ponting had been among those to question whether Konstas should have gotten involved in Bumrah's beef with Khawaja in the first place.

"One guy you don't want to upset is Jasprit Bumrah," Ponting told Channel Seven on Saturday. 

"The way he's bowled and the fact he has got Khawaja out five times in the series, I didn't like Konstas getting involved. 

"That was not his battle to fight. It was between Khawaja and Bumrah. 

"For the young man there, I hope that there was some talking to from the Australian dressing room last night because he should have stayed out of that, let his senior player handle the last couple of balls."

NRMA Insurance Men's Test Series v India

First Test: India won by 295 runs

Second Test: Australia won by 10 wickets

Third Test: Match drawn

Fourth Test: Australia won by 184 runs

Fifth Test: January 3-7: SCG, Sydney, 10.30am AEDT

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Travis Head (vc), Usman Khawaja, Sam Konstas, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Jhye Richardson, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal