Ranji Trophy: A season to forget for Arun Karthick

CHENNAI: It was a "huge relief" for local boy and Assam skipper KB Arun Karthick when he stepped into the IIT Chemplast ground last week. The Assam-Maharashtra Ranji Trophy match, which Assam lost by an innings and 52 runs, was Karthick's first match in Tamil Nadu in Assam colours.
The last time the 30-year-old wicket-keeper batsman played a first-class match in Chennai was in 2013 when he represented Tamil Nadu against Rajasthan.
"Walking into this ground at this juncture of the season was a huge relief for me. I was already playing out of my comfort zone for the past three years and now this season we had to go out of Guwahati as well because of the neutral venues concept. For the last three days, I stayed at home. I felt like I was playing a first division league match," Karthick said.
Karthick played a huge part in the resurgence of Assam last season as they made it to the semifinals. However, Assam couldn't replicate the same performance this time around as they find themselves languishing at the bottom half of the table with eight points in seven matches.
Karthick said lack of preparation ahead of the season was one of the major reasons. "It would have been good if had we played a few matches in Guwahati as our bowlers knew the conditions better. But that's no reason for the mediocre show. We wanted to replicate what we did last time.
"However, our preparation in the lead up to the season wasn't up to the mark. It took some time to appoint the coach and select the team. The players hardly had time to get together and work on a lot of aspects. On the whole, we didn't click as a unit. We strive to improve and move forward," said Karthick, who scored 47 & 87* here against Maharashtra.
For someone who began as an occasional wicket-keeper, Karthick had kept a staggering 610.4 overs in the first five matches this season before he handed over the duties to Kunal Saikia. Karthick mentioned the hectic travel and long hours behind the stumps didn't help his cause as a batsman.
"You travel from one place to another with little rest in between and then I had to keep more than 100 overs on almost every occasion. I even had a minor hamstring issue but I carried on keeping as me wearing the gloves gave the team some balance. But I'm not trying to give excuses. There were times when I could have gone to score big hundreds but failed to do so. It's slightly disappointing to get out in the fifties but then you have to keep looking ahead and give your best," he added.