Goud blames it on lack of consistency

This wasn’t the start Karnataka’s coach and bowling coach duo of Yere Goud and S Arvind was looking at when they kick-started the new season with the Vijay Hazare Trophy earlier this month.

After four losses, two wins and as many washouts, they stand eliminated from the competition and Goud blamed lack of consistency from the batsmen and new-ball bowlers’ inability to give early breakthroughs as reasons for their disappointing show.

“I think in terms of consistency as a batting unit (is an area of improvement),” Goud said after Karnataka’s six-wicket loss to Punjab here on Monday. “If you look at it we have only one 100 in six completed games and five fifties. And the other point to look at is we have conceded five hundreds. From the bowling point of view, we have not taken wickets with the new ball and that has put the pressure on other bowlers.

“With two new balls, you need to take wickets early on. If you are not taking early wickets with the white ball, then it becomes difficult (because) the ball doesn’t do much after that. We haven’t done that well at all, if you see we have almost conceded 50 or so in the first 10 overs of most of the power plays. So overall, we were not that good,” he reasoned.

Goud was more critical of the batsmen and felt they failed to apply themselves to the situations.

“I would say it’s lack of application,” Goud said categorically when asked about batting failures. “If you look at most of the scores, there are 20s and 30s… They have got those starts but not gone on to make them big. If they had converted those starts… Even in this game (against Punjab on Monday), we could have scored 330-340.”

The former Karnataka skipper admitted it was a wake-up call ahead of the long and more important phase of the season.

“We need to take our game to the next level,” he stressed. “We have our preparation plans till the first (Ranji) game on November 12. Of course, we have one month’s time for preparation. In a way it’s good what has happened now because it’s a wake-up call for us. We will work towards what are the areas that have not worked for us in this tournament.”