Former Indian wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik doesn’t want India’s rookie fast bowler Gurnoor Brar to tone down his aggression. Brar has been in the face of the New Zealand batters in the ongoing tour.
In the fourth ODI on Friday, Brar ended Seifert’s innings in the 12th over, with wicketkeeper Ishan Kishan completing a diving catch behind the stumps.
However, the dismissal was followed by a heated exchange between the two players. Brar gave Seifert a fiery send-off, prompting Virat Kohli to intervene and take the young Indian pacer away from the New Zealand batter.
“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
Karthik noted Brar’s celebrations are unnecessarily over the top after he gets the opposition batter out.
“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.”
On the other hand, former Indian spinner Murali Kartik praised Axar Patel, who returned with impressive figures of 2-39 in the penultime game of the series.
“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 (via the aforementioned source).
India was bowled out for 89 and suffered a massive 244-run loss.
