Former Indian wicket keeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik expressed concerns regarding one-sided contests in the modern era after India defeated the West Indies convincingly by eight wickets at the Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow, on Tuesday.
Karthik noted the ODI series between India and the West Indies was also one-sided, as the team chasing the target won on all three occasions.
Meanwhile, India was able to chase down the target of 172 with 32 balls to spare after Indian skipper Shreyas Iyer scored a brilliant knock of 102 runs off just 43 balls in the opening game. Furthermore, India recently registered wins of more than 100 runs against Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.
“For me, the bigger worry in the bigger context would be, are these games getting a bit too meaningless? In the sense that 170 is scored, and the other team is chasing it in 15 overs. Is the pitch so flat that the batters are wreaking havoc? That is something that we need to see. Why is it that the teams are not competing? What would it take for West Indies to compete? I don’t think that’s India’s job because they are there to win the bilateral series,” Dinesh Karthik said on Cricbuzz.
“How interesting is it to watch if a lot of the games are becoming one-sided? All 3 ODIs were pretty much one-sided and high-scoring. Here, 170 is a good, decent score, but very easily chased down. If the pitch had something in it for the spinners, then it was a decent score. But on flat pitches, they are coming in and smashing it and finishing in 15 overs. That worries me for the long run; that is not a good sign,” he continued.
Karthik said the fans and pundits also want to see the competition between the two teams, and the flat pitches are ruining the same.
“There was no fight from the West Indies team at any point after that. After 35-2, you want the team to be 50-4 or 80-5; that is when the game becomes interesting. I just feel that it is too batter-oriented. We love our superstars and we all want them to score a lot of runs, but we also want competition,” Dinesh Karthik added.
The second T20I between India and the West Indies will be played at Ranchi on Friday.
