Former Indian wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik is not telling Gurnoor Brar to settle down. Karthik backed the aggression that earned India their first wicket in Mount Maunganui, saying he would rather accept the occasional flare-up than see the fast bowler's edge dulled.
Brar dismissed Tim Seifert for 58 with the final ball of the 12th over, then advanced toward the departing batter and roared right in his face. Senior player Virat Kohli had to step between Brar and Seifert to restore calm.
"I like the fact that he has fire in him. He's going to cross the line at the odd time, which is fine, as long as it doesn't become something you cannot handle. I don't want him to lose the zeal to play the sport and become this perfect cricketer with a set way to celebrate a wicket. Right now, he's hungry and fiery, which is not a bad thing," said Karthik on Cricbuzz.
"The only criticism I have is he celebrates a lot more when the batter gets out and can be nasty. If he can control that to the point where he celebrates with his teammates rather than at the batter, the rest of what he does, like having a chirp when he bowls, should be encouraged. That fire is what got India the first wicket ultimately. That's how he operates, and we should allow him to operate in that territory,” he added.
New Zealand posted 333 runs thanks to Will Young’s brilliant 125, Seifert’s 58 and contributions from Michael Bracewell and Mitchell Santner. Brar, Auqib Nabi and Axar Patel picked two wickets each for India.
Murali Kartik, in the same discussion, talked about Axar Patel, who returned with figures of 2/39 in his 10 overs.
"He (Axar) bowled beautifully. He's not a spinner; we all know that. So, what he does is slow the ball down and vary his pace brilliantly. He's one with a big heart and reads the batter. In spite of not having a lot of guile, he gets the most out of himself," said Kartik.
Matt Henry hurt India badly in the chase, dismissing Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer for ducks in the first over itself. India never recovered from this and was bowled out for 89 runs in 26.4 overs, despite 27 by Ishan Kishan and 21 runs each from Axar Patel and Naman Dhir.
