Cricket

My promotion in World Cup semi-final came as a bit of surprise – Dinesh Karthik

 

Indian batsman Dinesh Karthik was left a tad surprised when the think tank asked him to bat at number five in the all-important World Cup clash against New Zealand. Karthik revealed that he was earlier asked to bat at number seven throughout the tournament whenever he was part of the final XI and he was not prepared for the surprise.

However, India was in a pickle when they were tottering at 5-3. Thus, Virat Kohli and Co. decided to alter their batting line-up and sent Karthik to bat at number five. It was done so as the team management wanted MS Dhoni to bat lower down the order.

Karthik recalled that he had to hurry himself as he was informed about his batting promotion at the 11th hour. When KL Rahul was dismissed by Matt Henry, Karthik had to go in and even had to scamper.

India was chasing 240 but the early wickets had pushed the team on the backfoot. Furthermore, India had its perennial issues that the middle order didn’t have a lot of batting to do as the top order batters had done the lion share of the scoring. Suddenly, when the top-order crumbled like a pack of cards, the pressure was shifted to middle order in a big semi-final match.

In fact, Karthik was successful in getting himself settled at the crease as he faced 25 balls. However, his resistance was ended by a superb catch from James Neesham.

“It came as a bit of a surprise to me (walking in to bat at five) because they had made it very clear that I would be batting at number seven,” he said in a chat with Harsha Bhogle on Cricbuzz In Conversation.

“But they didn’t expect something like that to happen because we were going pretty strong in the tournament. Rohit was batting so well, you always have Virat, Shikhar had done well till he left. The middle order typically didn’t get enough opportunities to bat, and that is one of the harder ones you know. When the middle order doesn’t get to bat and suddenly are pushed into a big game like this and thrust into such a situation.

There was a lot of pressure and it was not an easy situation for Karthik to walk in. In fact, Karthik had only played in two matches in the tournament before the semi-final clash. He ended up scoring only 14 runs in the three games he played in the ODI showpiece.

As expected, Karthik’s last match in the Indian colours was the heart-breaking semi-final, which India lost by 18 runs. However, there is no denying the fact that the Tamil Nadu veteran batsman has done well in the T20I version. Karthik had recently said that he has not lost hope of once again making it back in the T20I side.

 

Written by: Gautam Chauhan
Related Post
Share
Published by
Website Admin

Recent Posts

Mavericks pick Cooper Flagg at No. 1 in 2025 NBA draft

Dallas Mavericks have bagged the services of forward Cooper Flagg with the first pick of… Read More

June 27, 2025

Nick Kyrgios predicts Carlos Alcaraz to have better career than Jannik Sinner

Nick Kyrgios has predicted that Carlos Alcaraz will have a better career than Jannik Sinner.… Read More

June 27, 2025

Pep Guardiola says Manchester City played like a good team after a long time

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola noted that his side played like a good team after… Read More

June 27, 2025

Aakash Chopra opens up on Jofra Archer’s return, says fast bowler can be a game-changer ahead of 2nd Test against India

Former Indian Test opener Aakash Chopra has noted that while Jofra Archer has been added… Read More

June 27, 2025

Michael Vaughan lauds Rishabh Pant, says there is a lot of science in his madness

Former England captain Michael Vaughan showered praise on Rishabh Pant after the opening Test match… Read More

June 27, 2025

Ajinkya Rahane picks India’s two best hundreds from ENG vs IND 2025 1st Test

Indian batter Ajinkya Rahane picked KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant’s centuries in the second innings… Read More

June 27, 2025