Dinesh Karthik, a veteran Indian wicketkeeper-batsman and cricket pundit, opined on stand-in captain KL Rahul's statement about playing an "aggressive brand of cricket" in the two-match Test series against Bangladesh after Team India survived an early setback on the first day of the first Test in Chattogram.
On Wednesday, December 14, India’s stand-in captain Rahul won the toss and decided to bat first, but the tourists had a really poor start against Bangladesh, as they lost their three wickets (Rahul, 22, Shubman Gill, 20, and Virat Kohli, 1) for just 48 runs and found themselves in a tricky position.
However, Cheteshwar Pujara (90) and Shreyas Iyer (82*) fought hard to bring Team India back into the game, as the tourists ended day one at 278/6 at stumps against Bangladesh in Chattogram.
After the end of the first day’s play on Wednesday, Dinesh Karthik said that the Indian cricket team can’t play the "Bazball" style, as he was reacting to Rahul’s statement that the tourists will be adopting an aggressive approach in the Test series, keeping in mind the WTC 2023 final berth.
Dinesh Karthik said on Cricbuzz: “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.”
He further explained, “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.”
Karthik signed off by saying, “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.”
