Veteran wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik isn’t pleased with the progress of Indian cricket in 2022, insisting that other teams have left behind the Rohit Sharma-led side with their fearless brand of cricket, especially in the shortest format of the game.
Speaking with Cricbuzz, Karthik weighed in on India’s performance in 2022, saying the team has had a very ordinary year and didn’t live up to the expectations in Test cricket.
"I think it's been a very ordinary year for Indian cricket. When it comes to Test matches, we had an opportunity against South Africa, which we let go, being 1-0 up. We blew our chances in South Africa, I think that was not a good effort by India, considering how well they played the first Test match," said Karthik.
"And again against Bangladesh, we had a good first Test match but had to huff and puff our way in the second one. We lost the one-off Test match against England, So Test cricket has been ordinary at best. There's a lot that needs to be looked at," he added.
Commenting on T20I showing, Karthik pointed out that Team India were good in bilateral series but once again failed to rise to the occasion in multi-nation tournaments.
"Let's talk about T20s, I think bilaterally India has had a very good year in T20 cricket. We've won many bilateral tournaments but in multi-nation tournaments, be it the Asia Cup or the World Cup, India was found abegging. That is a template that needs to change right from the top and the way we play our T20 cricket. There are teams which are zooming past us and playing a different brand of cricket. Whereas, we are in many ways, stuck in a vortex with the old-school way rather than accepting the new way of playing T20 cricket," he stated.
India will kick-start the year 2023 with the home T20I series against Sri Lanka, starting January 3 in Mumbai.