Former Indian captain and legendary batter Sunil Gavaskar has batted for Dinesh Karthik’s selection in the India’s T20 World Cup squad. The 37-year-old was the star performer for India in the fourth T20I against South Africa, which was played in Rajkot on Friday (June 17). The right-handed wicketkeeper-batter arrived at the crease as a number six batter and scored 55 runs from just 27 balls. During his stay at the crease, he hammered 9 fours and 2 sixes to help India win by 82 runs and go level with the Temba Bavuma-led side.
Karthik made his comeback to the Indian team on the back of his superlative form for Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL 2022. Recently, former Indian opening batter Gautam Gambhir said, “If he doesn’t have a place in the playing XI, there’s no point giving him a place in the squad” about Dinesh Karthik’s World Cup chances. And this has not gone down well with Gavaskar, who disagreed with Gambhir and said Karthik could be ‘the guy India wants.’
“I know people are talking about how can you include him in the team when he’s not going to play. How do you see he’s not going to be able to play? He could be the guy you want. You look at the form and not reputations or names and then you pick the guy,” Gavaskar said.
“He (Dinesh Karthik) doesn’t get too many opportunities, bats at No. 6 and 7. You can’t expect him to get 50 regularly. He’ll get you a good 40 in 20 deliveries, and that’s what he has been doing consistently. He did exactly the same thing again, and that is the reason why he’s very much in contention for a place in the World Cup squad. The way he was getting runs today (Friday), India was down and out. It showed great character, great determination, and a great sense of purpose. He’s desperate to play for India again. I think that might be his swansong. I know there’s a 50-overs World Cup next year and he might want to be available for that as well. But whatever it is, don’t look at the man’s age, look at the performances,” the former great added.
