From Johannesburg 2006 To Rajkot 2022, ‘Comeback King’ Dinesh Karthik Remains India’s Evergreen T20 Star

India played their first-ever T20I against South Africa on December 1 2006 in Johannesburg. On Friday, India appeared in their 163rd T20I in Rajkot and this time too, their opposition was South Africa. As it turned out, the Men in Blue emerged victorious on both occasions. (More Cricket News)

Apart from the Indian win, there was another similarity between the two games with a time difference of nearly 16 years. Dinesh Karthik, who turned 37 on June 1 this year, was the only cricketer to feature in both matches. Coincidentally, he also walked away with the Man-of-the-Match award on both occasions.

In Johannesburg, Karthik had scored an unbeaten 31 off 28 balls to guide India to a thrilling six-wicket win over the Proteas with one ball to spare. On Friday night, he blasted a 27-ball 55 to lift the hosts from a precarious 81/4 in 12.5 overs to a competitive 169/6 that proved to be a winning total as the visitors were rolled over for a paltry 87 in 16.5 overs.

FOREVER IN THE SHADOW OF MSD

The Rajkot game was only the 36th appearance for Karthik in the T20Is for India. Despite being labelled a 20-over specialist (he had played some T20 games during his county stint in England before 2006) and starring in India’s maiden T2OI, he never failed to cement his place in the national side, thanks to his contemporary wicketkeeper-batter and one of the country’s most successful captains, the uber-cool Mahendra Singh Dhoni who went on to feature in 98 matches before hanging up his boots in 2020.

Karthik met with a similar fate in the ODIs and Test cricket too. In both these formats, he debuted before Dhoni. However, while Dhoni walked away from international cricket with 90 Test and 350 ODI caps, Karthik has only appeared in 26 Tests and 94 ODIs so far.

The Chennai-born cricketer, though, has always been relentless in his pursuit of a place in the national team. When he realised that he may not be able to enter the playing XI as a wicketkeeper-batter due to the presence of Dhoni, he worked hard on his batting and made it to the Indian team as a specialist batter on multiple occasions.

The first of these instances came to the fore in England in 2007 where he opened the innings with Wasim Jaffer in all the three Tests of the tour. His 136-ball 77 in the first innings of the second Test at Nottingham laid the foundation of India’s series-defining victory in which Zaheer Khan had starred with the ball. With a tally of 263 runs at 43.83, he was India’s highest run-getter in the series. However, he was dropped from the Test team after mustering only 115 runs at 19.17 in a three-match series against Pakistan at home in the same year.

Karthik scripted another comeback as a specialist batter at the 2019 ODI World Cup in England. He was once again dropped from the side after he failed to make much of an impression during the tournament. He was already 34. It seemed as if curtains had come down on his international career.

ARRIVAL OF KARTHIK 2.O

In the English summer of 2021, Karthik was making waves in an altogether different avatar. The Tamil Nadu cricketer had donned the mantle of a commentator for Sky Sports and impressed one and all with his rich insights and forthright views behind the mic. People thought he was preparing for a life post cricket.

The elegant right-hander was back playing for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the 2021 IPL, but he had a forgettable tournament. He scored only 223 runs in 17 matches and KKR didn't retain him for the next season.

Karthik, though, had other ideas after being bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for Rs 5.50 crore at the IPL 2022 auction. The 37-year-old took the 15th edition of the world’s richest T20 league by storm, plundering 330 runs in 16 games at a mind-boggling strike rate of 183.33. Among batters with at least 200 runs in the tournament, his strike rate was the best. His batting was at the heart of the RCB making it to the play-offs.

For the ongoing five-T20I series against South Africa, his resurgence with the bat earned him a place in the Indian team again as a specialist batter. After not getting enough opportunities to bat in the first three games, he vindicated his selection with a match-winning knock in the fourth that may have sealed his spot in the Indian squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup in Australia later this year.

If Karthik does go on to play at the 2022 World Cup, his life will come full circle considering he was dubbed India’s first T20 specialist. 

(Ankit Kumar Singh is a journalist-turned-academician. Views are personal)