Onus down to seniors: Karthik, Manjrekar defend Gambhir

New Delhi, Oct 27: Former wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik believes the onus for the Test series loss to New Zealand rests with the senior Indian players, while former batter Sanjay Manjrekar feels it would be unfair to place the blame on coach Gautam Gambhir.
India lost the second Test to New Zealand by 113 runs in Pune on Saturday as the Black Caps took an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three match series. With this, India’s proud run of 18 consecutive series wins at home since losing to England in 2012-13 ended.
Throughout the two matches, the senior players underperformed. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli struggled with the bat, while the formidable spin duo of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja also failed to make a significant impact.
“Yeah. Why shouldn’t it (the onus of the series loss) be the senior players? They will look at themselves and say, ‘What could we have done better?’ I don’t think they have run away from it,” Karthik said on ‘Cricbuzz’.
“If you can celebrate the highs and the fans enjoy how important they are, when the team wins, then when the losses happen, and the brick bats are thrown at you I think they will have the courage to face it,” he added.Karthik said the seniors themselves will take responsibility for the defeat, acknowledging that they did not have their best series.
“If you go and ask each one of them personally, what they think of the series I don’t think they’ll have great things to say about how the whole team played, and it is only but fair to ask them questions about what can be done better for future of Test cricket in India and for Indian Test cricket.“So, knowing them personally, and I do know each one of them personally. They will say that they didn’t have the best series,” he detailed. (PTI)