Karthik and Manjrekar defend Gambhir and say the burden of series loss is on seniors-Telangana Today

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

New Delhi: Former wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik believes responsibility lies for the loss of the Test series New Zealand lies with the senior Indian players, while former batsman Sanjay Manjrekar feels it is unfair to put 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. This ended India’s proud run of 18 consecutive wins at home since the defeat to England in 2012-13.

The seniors performed below average during the two matches. 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.

“Yes. Why shouldn’t it (the responsibility for 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 highlights and the fans can enjoy how important they are, when the team wins, then when the losses happen and the brickbats are thrown at you, I think they will have the courage to face it see,” he added. Karthik said the seniors themselves will take responsibility for the defeat, and acknowledged that they were not having their best run.

“If you ask each of them personally what they think of the series, I don’t think they’ll have great things to say about how the entire team played, and it’s only fair to ask them questions about what could be better done for the future of Test cricket in India and for Indian Test cricket. So I know them personally, and I know them all personally. They will say they didn’t have the best series. The question then becomes what do they need to do to get better, and it’s a very timely question to ask,” he explained.

New head coach Gautam Gambhir has also found himself in the firing line after India made a tactical mistake and experienced repeated batting collapses in the two Tests, but Manjrekar backed the former opener. “I still maintain that the coach has the minimum influence on a team, less than your 11th weakest player. He doesn’t set foot on the ground, the captain is in charge there. But you have to applaud him for selecting Washington Sundar, which was an instant hit,” Manjrekar told ESPNcricinfo.

‘But the step to move Washington forward Sarfaraz Khan or perhaps four spinners would have made more sense here. But to lay any kind of responsibility at the door of Gautam Gambhir would be terribly unfair because so far we cannot do that because in cricket a coach has minimal influence on performance,” he added.