Former Indian cricketer Murali Kartik has asserted that the tight cricketing schedule is unfair to the Indian cricket team as they take their flight to New Zealand for their all-format tour after the five-match T20I series against the West Indies at home.
While the West Indies series concluded on Saturday, October 17 in Bengaluru, the upcoming five-match T20I series against New Zealand commences on Thursday, October 22 in Christchurch.
Speaking to a select media on Sony Sports Network, Kartik opened up on the tough and gruelling cricketing schedule. He went on to reveal that the Indian T20I squad arrived late in Bengaluru after attending the Asian Games ceremony in Delhi.
“It’s been tough for them, to be very honest. When you think of what happened between Hyderabad and Bengaluru (during West Indies T20Is). Thankfully, the game got rained out, but I think the Asian Games winners had to go to Delhi, and they had to come back to Bangalore, and the gap was only 2 days, and I suppose they reached at 2 AM a day before the game,” Murali Kartik said.
“I think Shreyas Iyer alluded to it. He didn’t know where he was and what was happening. And over here, too, they’ve left in two batches to reach New Zealand. So, it’s been a short and a sharp turnaround, and it is what it is. Sometimes, as players, you are trying to work around it. It’ll be tough on people if they are going there for the first time, to any place, for that matter. You don’t know what the conditions are, you’ve only read, or you’ve only, or you’ve heard. You’ve not experienced them yourself. So, it’ll be interesting how it goes, but yeah, it is what it is, and it is hard on them, and sometimes we are being unfair on them as well,” Murali Kartik noted.
