Former Indian spinner Murali Kartik believes the current cricketing schedule is ‘unfair’ to the Indian team as they head to New Zealand for an all-format tour soon after the end of the five-match home series against West Indies. India will begin their tour against New Zealand with a five-match T20I series from Thursday, October 22 onwards as well.

“It’s been tough for them, to be very honest. When you think of what happened between Hyderabad and Bengaluru (during West Indies T20Is). Thankfully, the game got rained out, but I think the Asian Games winners had to go to Delhi, and they had to come back to Bangalore, and the gap was only 2 days, and I suppose they reached at 2 AM a day before the game,” Murali Kartik said in a select media interaction organised by Sony Sports Network.

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“I think Shreyas Iyer alluded to it. He didn’t know where he was and what was happening. And over here, too, they’ve left in two batches to reach New Zealand. So, it’s been a short and a sharp turnaround, and it is what it is. Sometimes, as players, you are trying to work around it. It’ll be tough on people if they are going there for the first time, to any place, for that matter. You don’t know what the conditions are, you’ve only read, or you’ve only, or you’ve heard. You’ve not experienced them yourself. So, it’ll be interesting how it goes, but yeah, it is what it is, and it is hard on them, and sometimes we are being unfair on them as well,” Murali Kartik shared.

Meanwhile, Shreyas Iyer, who starred in the match with his maiden T20I hundred, admitted that the extent of fatigue brought on by continuous travel.

“After that exhausting travel, I didn’t realize where I was, to be honest. Looking forward to it (sleep). I’m already sleepy. I could see Axar’s eyes as well have become red. So I’m sure all of us are,” Shreyas Iyer had said during the post-match presentation as well.