Bangalore: India wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik is enamoured by Afghanistan’s ‘beautiful journey’ in international cricket but that hasn’t stopped him from shooting off a veiled warning to the newcomers.
“Clearly all their spinners put together wouldn’t have played that many matches that (a young) Kuldeep Yadav (24 first class matches) would have played in four day cricket,” Karthik said here Tuesday ahead of the historic one-off Test against Afghanistan starting Thursday.
Factually, he is correct as Kuldeep’s 24 first class games including two Test matches is 13 more than the aggregate of 11 four-day games between three of Afghanistan’s specialist spinners – Rashid Khan (four), Zahir Khan (seven) and Mujeeb Zadran (0).
Karthik was all praise for what the war-ravaged country has achieved on the cricketing arena but politely reminded rival captain Asghar Stanikzai about why Indian spinners are far ahead of the T20 sensations like Rashid Khan and Mujeeb Zadran. The Afghan skipper had recently stated that they have ‘better quality spinners’ than India.
“I don’t know what the person (Stanikzhai) had said but you have got to understand that we have got a lot of experience, not only in Tests but a lot of domestic cricket, a lot of four day matches,” Karthik pointed out.
The man who has replaced an injured Wriddhiman Saha behind the stumps asserted that the value of experience can never be undermined, the testimony being a whopping 476 Test wickets between Ravichandran Ashwin (311) and Ravindra Jadeja (165).
“Experience at the end of the day has a lot of value as you saw with CSK in IPL. I am very sure that they (Afghanistan) would be better bowlers by the start of the next Test match than what they are now,” Karthik offered words of encouragement for the ‘rookies’.
“The kind of improvement they have shown in white ball cricket has been phenomenal. There is no reason why they can’t emulate the same with the red ball. But I would say our spinners have a lot of experience and I would say experience can’t be easily bought. I am sure their players will also vouch for that,” added Karthik.
Record of a different kind
Bangalore: Dinesh Karthik has achieved a record of sorts as a wicket-keeper by making a comeback into the India team after 87 Tests. Prior to him, the record belonged to Parthiv Patel, who returned to the Indian team after 83 Tests. The stumper however, is quick to admit that it wasn’t easy being Dinesh Karthik in an era where Mahendra Singh Dhoni redefined the role of a keeper-batsman. Karthik last played a Test in 2010. “Look, I think I wasn’t good enough, rather I was not consistent enough. That was a highly competitive environment and there was someone called MS Dhoni. He went on to become one of the greatest captains India has ever produced,” Karthik said Tuesday ahead of his comeback Test.