India’s veteran wicket-keeper batter Dinesh Karthik feels the team can’t emulate England’s Bazball style of cricket right now. Before the first Test match against Bangladesh, India’s stand-in captain KL Rahul had stated that the team will look to be aggressive with the WTC final on the line.
The two-match Test series against the Tigers is crucial for India in order to qualify for the final. Karthik feels the draw chances are more on slow types of pitches and it is important to play with guile.
On the other hand, England is going all guns blazing since Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have taken over the captaincy and coaching roles respectively. The Three Lions have taken an impregnable lead of 2-0 in the three-match Test series against Pakistan. England has adopted an aggressive approach and it has reaped rewards for them.
“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 make 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,” Karthik said on Cricbuzz.
“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. 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,” Karthik further said.
Meanwhile, KL Rahul revealed his team would be aggressive against Bangladesh. However, as the Chhatogram pitch was difficult to bat on, India scored 404 runs in 133.5 overs, thereby scoring at 3.01 runs/over.
“There is a Test championship (final) qualification so we will also have to be aggressive. We know where we stand and what we need to do to qualify for the final,” Rahul had said during a media conference.
On the other hand, Bangladesh is 37-2 in reply to India’s 404.
