Australia head coach Andrew McDonald has taken shots at Team India after their celebrations on the final ball of Day 1. Speaking on Saturday (Jan 4), McDonald stated that celebrations after Usman Khawaja’s wicket were intimidating as Indian players surrounded Sam Konstas having earlier been involved in a spat with Jasprit Bumrah. According to McDonald, India could have kept the celebrations low while he had a word with Konstas after the end of the day’s play.

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McDonald takes aim at India

"My conversation with him was around whether he's okay. Clearly, the way India celebrated that was quite intimidating," McDonald said. "It's clearly 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'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."

With Khawaja wasting time in the few minutes of Day 1, it was Konstas who got into an argument as Team India tried to rush with the overs. However, the Aussie batter was dismissed on the final ball of the day leading to over-hyped celebrations by India. It was a big talking point on Friday before attention turned to Day 2 where 15 batters were dismissed.

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Bumrah’s absence could be felt big time as India struggled with the bat in their second innings of the Sydney Test. The top order yet again failed to perform with Yashasvi Jaiswal scoring (22), KL Rahul (13) and Shubman Gill (13). Virat Kohli also failed to make the most of his last innings in the series and scored six runs while getting out to Boland in a similar fashion.

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Rishabh Pant was the stand-out batter with 61 runs off 33 balls before falling to Pat Cummins. India at stumps on Day 2 were 141/6 and are leading by 145 runs as they look to stay in the contest with a big score.