Top cricketing nations have a rich pool of reserves who do the hard yards in domestic cricket and generally are included in the fringe squad.
However, the game of cricket can only allow eleven players to take part in the field. A long legendary international career often comes at the expense of several domestic stalwarts, who play in the shadow of the first-choice cricketers.
Therefore, pundits often reckon players are unfortunate to born in the era of cricketing geniuses. A classic example is that of Murali Kartik who found it difficult to break into the Indian side in the presence of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh.
Later on, the likes of Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra were preferred over Kartik at the highest level under MS Dhoni.
Kartik also had a decent experience in the Indian Premier League (IPL) where he played for several top-franchises, namely, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), now-defunct Pune Warriors India, and Kings XI Punjab (KXIP).
Now, the cricketer-turned-commentator has tagged his stint at KXIP as his ‘worst in career’.
“My worst two months was when I was with IPL team Kings XI Punjab. It was then Laxman who had a word with my wife Shweta and he didn’t want to see me like that,” Kartik told Sportstar on Instagram Live.
“I spoke to Laxman and then the media broadcasting thing happened. It wasn’t a tough decision to make but it did take me a while to make the decision. I thought it was better to go while playing well,” he added.
Further, Kartik mentioned about the art of spin on a decline in recent years due to the T20 format boom.
“The standard of spin bowling has been dropping and I feel the reason is too much of T20 cricket,” the former Tamil Nadu said.
“Nowadays most of the spinners dart and don’t flight the ball. The drift, the flight, the spin, making the batsmen feel and getting him out, they are all gone,” Kartik concluded.
