‘Are these games getting meaningless?’: Dinesh Karthik raises alarm over lopsided India vs West Indies matches originally appeared on Cricket News. Add Cricket News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
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Dinesh Karthik worries that one-sided India matches on flat pitches are making cricket less competitive.
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India chased 171 with 32 balls to spare, taking a 1-0 lead over West Indies.
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India won a record 406-run chase in Guwahati and now have a 10-match T20I winning streak.
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India vs West Indies: Dinesh Karthik expresses concern over one-sided T20Is after Shreyas Iyer’s blockbuster innings
Dinesh Karthik has raised concern about the growing number of lopsided matches involving India, with the first T20I against West Indies in Lucknow as the newest example.
The Shreyas Iyer-led side chased down 171 at the Ekana Stadium on Tuesday, October 6, with 32 balls remaining, and went 1-0 up in the five-match series.
The chase began with a wobble as India were 35 for 2 in the fourth over, and for a moment West Indies had a sniff. But Ishan Kishan and Iyer then added an unbeaten 137 for the third wicket, and the game was over as a contest. The skipper did most of the heavy lifting after he smashed 102* off just 43 balls.
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However, Karthik felt the visitors never fought back after those two early strikes, and the wider worry is the state of the pitches. In his view, a good total gets chased down far too easily when the surface offers nothing for bowlers.
“For me, the bigger worry in the bigger context would be, are these games getting a bit too meaningless?” he asked, appearing as a pundit on Cricbuzz.
“In the sense that 170 is scored, and the other team is chasing it in 15 overs. Is the pitch so flat that the batters are wreaking havoc? That is something that we need to see. Why is it that the teams are not competing? What would it take for West Indies to compete? I don’t think that’s India’s job because they are there to win the bilateral series.”
Shreyas Iyer India 09152026
BCCI/Creimas
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He then moved from the T20I to the ODIs, which he found equally one-sided and high-scoring. The point, as he saw it, is that 170 should be a fair score, but only on a pitch where spinners get something.
“How interesting is it to watch if a lot of the games are becoming one-sided?” he asked again. “All 3 ODIs were pretty much one-sided and high-scoring. Here, 170 is a good, decent score, but very easily chased down.
“If the pitch had something in it for the spinners, then it was a decent score. But on flat pitches, they are coming in and smashing it and finishing in 15 overs. That worries me for the long run; that is not a good sign.”
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Karthik questions West Indies’ fighting spirit after 1st T20I defeat
West Indies’ bowlers failed to hit the right length, and an unforgiving Iyer put them to the sword. Although they got Sanju Samson & Abhishek Sharma back to the pavilion within the powerplay, they did not capitalise on the early pressure before succumbing to Iyer’s onslaught.
“There was no fight from the West Indies team at any point after that. After 35-2, you want the team to be 50-4 or 80-5; that is when the game becomes interesting,” Karthik argued. “I just feel that it is too batter-oriented. We love our superstars and we all want them to score a lot of runs, but we also want competition.”
The numbers back his concern. In the recent home ODI series, Shubman Gill’s team chased a record target of 406 in only 43.3 overs in Guwahati and sealed the series with a game to spare. The T20I team is on a 10-match winning run, and most of those wins weren’t close.
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The series moves to Ranchi for the second T20I. The JSCA Stadium has staged four T20Is since 2016 and has never seen a 200-run total. And that might offer the closer contest Karthik is asking for.
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Karthik is right, and the fix starts with groundsmen, not opponents
Karthik touches a nerve, and it isn’t about India’s quality. The team deserves credit for each win. Chasing 406 is remarkable, and a 10-match T20I streak doesn’t happen by accident. But dominance and competition aren’t the same thing, and a series needs both to hold attention.
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The pitch matters more than people admit. When every surface favours batters, a decent total becomes a short-lived one, and fans lose the tension that makes a chase worth watching. Spinners and seamers need something to work with, and a 170 should feel like a real target.
However, India’s job is to win, and they’re doing exactly that. The burden falls on West Indies to show more fight, and on hosts and boards to prepare surfaces that reward all skills. An unbeaten 102 is great to watch once. Watched every week, it loses its edge.
Ranchi could be a useful test. If a lower-scoring pitch gives us a tighter game, the answer may be simpler than it looks.
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