Veteran India batter Dinesh Karthik has expressed his disappointment over the poor performances from Indian pacers Shardul Thakur and Prasidh Krishna in the Boxing Day Test against South Africa in Centurion. However, Team India lost the Test by an innings and 32 runs after being bowled out for 131 on Thursday, December 28. Speaking at the post-match presentation, captain Rohit Sharma backed his bowlers by highlighting their inexperience of playing in South African soil as well.

Reacting to Sharma’s comments, Karthik said during a discussion on Cricbuzz: “Shardul Thakur and Prasidh Krishna definitely need to up their game. Rohit Sharma is being very kind to them when he is saying that it is the first time for the bowlers and they are young bowlers, but Shardul was there on the previous tour as well and did pretty well. Today was a very ordinary performance from Shardul Thakur with the bat and the ball.”

However, Shardul Thakur was the most expensive Indian bowler in the the longer format, conceding 101 runs from 19 overs while picking up a single wicket. Prasidh Krishna, meanwhile, also failed to impress on his debut, giving away 93 runs from 20 overs and claiming one wicket.

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While talking about Krishna’s performance, Karthik added: “Prasidh Krishna, yes, he is young and doesn’t have too much first-class experience under his belt, and it really showed with the ball as well. He was giving away one too many boundary balls. There was not any control that he was able to give the captain.”

The veteran also suggested that Team India’s fast bowling attack hasn’t looked threatening enough in Mohammed Shami’s absence as well. He also added that they missed the reliability of senior bowlers like Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishant Sharma as well. Notably, Mohammed Shami was ruled out of the ongoing two-match Test series in South Africa due to an ankle injury as well.

“India prides itself in the last few years on how good the bowling attack is. But you could see that without Mohammed Shami there, this Indian attack is not what it used to be. Before, we had Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. They gave us at least consistency in length, and that was missing in a big way today as well,” Dinesh Karthik concluded. “I do think Prasidh Krishna makes way for Mukesh Kumar. You get the feeling that they need a little more experience. Not that Mukesh Kumar has played a lot of international cricket, be he has played a lot of first-class cricket.”