Alas, taking Gujarat Lions home and stemming his team’s seemingly never-ending rut was a hurdle too far for Dinesh Karthik, the first wicketkeeper in the Indian Premier League to have 100 scalps to his name.
But, the Tamil Nadu wicket-keeper may have already done enough for selectors to take notice of his exploits over the course of a magnificent season.
In the middle of the Ranji Trophy, Karthik decided to turn up for the final stages of the inaugural Tamil Nadu Premier League. He would go on to help his team – Albert TUTI Patriots – to win the title by cracking 170 runs in three games.
For the ones who doubted his ability to accelerate, he blitzed his way towards a 26-ball 55 in the summit event. It was only the beginning for Karthik, who was making run-scoring look like a walk in the park with each passing tournament. Here was a man with a tunnel vision to get back in the reckoning for a place that he had lost as a nervous twenty something.
Before coming into the IPL, he had amassed 211 runs in three games of the Duleep Trophy at an average of 52.75. He followed that by finishing at the top of the run-scoring charts in the Vijay Hazare trophy with 607 runs at an average of 86.71. He continued to gorge on the opposition bowlers with 202 runs in the Deodhar Trophy at a whopping average of 101.
Despite the presence of several big-hitters at the top of the order, Karthik forms a vital cog in the struggling Gujarat Lions setup.
Free-flowing Karthik
This may very well be the season where orthodox strokemakers dared to experiment with their strokemaking. Karthik’s astounding reverse lap-sweep against Mumbai Indians in an earlier group game may well go down as one of the best batting moments in the tournament so far.
Even Hashim Amla, known for his copybook technique, has not shied away from pulling out a lap-sweeps that would have not looked out of place in his South Africa teammate AB de Villiers’ arsenal. Karthik showed that his unorthodox new shot was no flash in the pan, pulling it off with aplomb against Punjab too.
It also underlined Karthik’s confidence, which has been found wanting during his brief but unsuccessful outings with India, and a man in supreme touch. However, a solitary fifty and a strike-rate 136.69 may not show how the 31-year-old has stamped his authority at at the crease.
Tale of two keepers
Just as Karthik was piling on a mountain of runs in domestic cricket, another India wicket-keeper batsman, Wriddhiman Saha was cementing his place as the de facto Test No 1. Even when he missed out, it was Gujarat’s Ranji Trophy winning captain and Karthik’s contemporary, Parthiv Patel who got the nod.
Gone are the days of a pure wicketkeeper. In the recent past, KL Rahul and Kedar Jadhav have been asked to don the gloves just so that team’s balance is not upset. So far, Saha has endured a nightmare run with the bat, and it could be a failure on the Kings XI Punjab’s team management’s, tossing and throwing the Bengal glovesman across the middle-order.
Karthik, on the other hand, has reaping the rewards for stability. All the sides he has played for over the course of the last nine months have used him as a one-down or a No.4, which has allowed him to settle in in the early overs before going for quick runs in the final overs. Punjab’s death bowling, though, kept him on a leash, repeatedly stifling him with wide yorkers
Another comeback? Does he stand a chance?
While statistics make for interesting reading, identifying batsmen who will hand out certain tasks for the team’s cause is what decides the fate of a batsman. There are a number of factors that go into deciding this outcome: Age, all-round abilities, experience etc. For the entirety of Karthik’s career, he had to compete with the colossal figure of MS Dhoni for a spot.
In the recent past, veteran Yuvraj Singh received a surprise nod for the limited-overs series against England. The selectors were initially slammed for their supposed short-sighted vision, and missing out on a chance to blood exiting upcoming talent that India is brimming with.
Yuvraj answered his critics with a cracking 150. The southpaw was brought in for a reason: To add explosiveness in the middle-order. Now, the position that has left many discarded Indian batsmen wide-eyed is KL Rahul’s – the Karnataka batsman is still struggling with injury and is set to miss out on the Champions Trophy.
While Rishabh Pant’s youthful exuberance and Manish Pandey’s spunk will certainly form an integral part of India’s middle-order in the future, it is a side packed with experience that prevails in major tournaments: An ethos made famous by the great Australian teams of the nineties.
On current form, Karthik can effortlessly change gears and has shown a never-seen-before ability to consistently knock off big scores. He has flattered to deceive in India colours, but don’t bet against him making another comeback.