India’s experienced wicket-keeper batsman Dinesh Karthik has shared that both Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane won’t be happy with their performance on Day 1 of the first Test between India and New Zealand in Kanpur. However, both of them got out by their poor shot selection while facing the pace bowlers and their poor form once again came under the scanner. Moreover, they have been going through a rough patch in recent times as well which may see issues in their places before the overseas tour of South Africa.
Dinesh Karthik, however, has said that their constant poor show in recent times has added more pressure on them from the outside. While speaking on Cricbuzz, Karthik said: “I think they would be disappointed and there’s no doubt about it. Obviously, there’s talk outside about them that they need to score hundreds because they haven’t for some time. So with every match, the pressure seems to increase.”
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He continued: “Obviously, because Test match is played sporadically they are not under the spotlight as often, because there’s been a lot more white-ball cricket with the World Cup and the T20Is against NZ. But once Test cricket starts with full tilt again, every time they don’t score runs, they’ll come under the spotlight, so to say in a negative way. And with every game voices from outside seem to get louder.”
However, Shreyas Iyer has scored his maiden hundred and he has nearly sealed his place in the playing XI as well. Dinesh Karthik also believes that the new head coach Rahul Dravid is the best person to get them back on the game as well.
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“Having said that, Rahul Dravid knows the value of a Pujara and a Rahane. I think somewhere the quality of Rahul Dravid will come out through these two batters because of very similar methods and very similar styles of play. So maybe he feels that he can get the best out of them and sort of a second re-living for them and Rahul Dravid might be the catalyst, for their test career propelling forward,” Dinesh Karthik concluded.
However, he also pointed out that there’s a technical issue with Shubman Gill’s batting. He stated that Gill goes across the ball and creates an unnecessary gap between his bat and pad as well. Gill had started well in the first session during Day 1 and eventually scored a half-century. But, in the first over of the second session, Kyle Jamieson bowled an inswinging delivery to him and it went through between his bat and pad and rattled the stumps.
While speaking about his recent trend of dismissals, Dinesh Karthik told ESPNcricinfo: “There’s a technical issue with him, he goes slightly across, and when you go across the ball then you tend to throw hands at the ball. That creates a bat-pad gap. Whereas if you stay slightly beside the ball and allow it to come to you, then you can play it – which is the right way to do it. As I saw the dismissal, it was clear that there’s just one technical issue that he needs to work on.”
He further added: “There’s nothing mental about it because he knows how to get big hundreds. This is a technical thing that he needs to work on so that he can be consistent in red ball cricket and this is also going to help him play white ball cricket better as well.”
Shubman Gill, however, scored five boundaries and a six in his innings of 52 runs from 93 deliveries. He also stated that Gill has no problem converting his starts into big ones. He has scored a few double hundreds in domestic cricket already.
“I don’t think he has a problem in converting starts into big ones. I think he knows how to score hundreds and as an example every time he’s got a 100 in first class cricket, he has converted them into double hundred or 250+,” Dinesh Karthik concluded.
