‘They couldn’t do it…’ – Dinesh Karthik opens up on KL Rahul’s ‘aggressive style of play’ statement

Prior to the start of the Test series against Bangladesh, KL Rahul, the Indian captain, opened up on the approach and said that the Indian team will try to emulate an aggressive mindset, closer to that of England’s ‘bazzball’ approach. However, it was not quite possible during Day 1 of the first Test on December 14, Wednesday as India were reduced to 48/3 initially, until Cheteshwar Pujara and Shreyas Iyer rescued the team. 

Rahul said that the Indian team would play with an aggressive mindset, given that there is a chance to qualify for the finals of the Test trophy. Notably, the Indian camp do have a chance to make a cut to the finals of the Test trophy, however, it remains to be seen if they could achieve the desired result, given that they have very less margin to lose. 

“There is a Test championship (final) qualification so we will also have to be aggressive. We know where we stand and what we need to do to qualify for the final,” Rahul was quoted as saying in a press conference ahead of the first Test. 

As things stand, Dinesh Karthik, the Indian wicketkeeper, opened up on India’s performance on Day 1 and said that the team was not able to emulate the ‘Bazzball’ style of cricket. Further, Karthik opined that it would be difficult for the Indian team to carry on with the intent, as the pitch is not favouring batting. 

These are kind of wickets that sometimes end up not producing a result: Dinesh Karthik

“For me, as I said, it is very evident that these are kind of wickets that sometimes end up not producing a result. As the Test match carries on, the wear and tear makes it slow. If the quality of the batsmanship is not great, you will end up seeing batsmen make mistakes. If your temperament is strong, you won’t need a great technique to stay at the wicket,” Karthik was quoted as saying.

“For starters, India cannot play the Bazball kind of cricket because right now, it’s not a part of our DNA to do something like that. For KL Rahul to come out and say that they will play aggressive cricket basically means that they want to make a match out of it and get a result, knowing that the WTC final is around the corner and these two games become critical. They want to press the accelerator and push the scoring rate. They couldn’t do it today because the wicket is slow, and you have to bring a different tempo altogether and that will require a few players who bat that way,” he added.