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We are gunning for the title: Karthik

Last Updated 17 March 2018, 13:49 IST

Shakib-al-Hasan, who had plenty to say to both opposition players and match officials when his team beat Sri Lanka on Friday, seemed to be chastened by the 25 percent match fee fine the ICC had stung him with. When asked about events from that game, all he would say was: "Let's not discuss all that today. Let's leave that on the field."

India, fortunately, have been spared talking about behaviour and controversy in this tournament. But Dinesh Karthik admitted that playing Bangladesh, who they have never lost to in a Twenty20 International, could prove tricky.  

"Let's be fair to India as a cricketing nation -- whether we play the second string or the first string team that's always the case. When we play Bangladesh, if we win it's like 'Ok, you've won against Bangladesh', but if we lose it's like 'Dude, you've lost to Bangladesh. What are you doing?'" he said.

"I'm sure that's going to be there. With Rohit (Sharma), the first thing that he said was that although we have a few of our other players missing, we're looking to play exactly the sort of cricket that we've played in the past one year. We're looking to win every match."

Karthik admitted that there would be another unusual challenge ahead of his team, playing in front of a near-empty stadium. "See I think a noisy crowd makes a massive difference. When you play international cricket you're used to a certain amount of crowd - that's one of the things that spurs you on. It has a massive effect on fielding. Sometimes the motivation is not there," he said.

"The second match that we played I thought we fielded the poorest, against Bangladesh. We dropped about five catches. We weren't the usual Indian team that's known for its fielding. The fielding coach was straightaway in our ears and pointing it out, saying that's not happening irrespective of whether we have a crowd or not, whether the outfield is good or not. We've set a certain benchmark for ourselves and we need to keep hitting that benchmark every time we step on to that field. I think that message was taken loud and clear by the boys. I think we came back all guns blazing the next time we played Sri Lanka and in the next game against Bangladesh."  

Karthik also offered a solution as to how batsmen could tackle spinners in these conditions. "I think rotating the strike is very important. See the thing is in wickets, if it goes straight then it's a flat wicket. If it only turns then that's also fine but the tricky wicket is when the odd ball turns the odd ball goes straight, so it's always a little bit harder even to rotate strike it's not that easy," he said.

"That's the tricky part about this wicket and that's why you see a lot of dot balls being played, batsman is kind of second guessing whether it's going to turn or not."

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(Published 17 March 2018, 13:46 IST)

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