Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar said he was able to see from close quarters how determined Dinesh Karthik was to make a comeback to the Indian squad and contribute to the team. Gavaskar said the time he spent with Karthik during their commentary stint in the UK last year showed him Karthik’s hunger to don the India blue once again.
Karthik last played for India at the 2019 World Cup. The 36-year-old has certainly given the Indian selectors a healthy headache in the lead up to the T20 World Cup with his performances for the Royal Challengers Bangalore.
At RCB, Karthik has scored 274 runs at an average of 68 and a staggering strike rate of 200, the best for any batter in IPL 2022.
“I spent a lot of time with him last year. We spent about 10-12 days in quarantine in Belgrade, Serbia where we practically sort of spending 12 to 14 hours a day, eating lunch, dinner, and breakfast.
“Spending time with him, I got to see how keen he was to come back to the Indian team. He was keen to come back to the team that played in the UAE last year. That didn’t quite happen. It was perhaps a little too close. The IPL that year didn’t go all that well for him.
“But the way the IPL is going for him at the moment, I do believe he should be very much in the running for the India spot in the October tournament, maybe even earlier for South Africa, for England, I do believe he should be earlier in the team,” Gavaskar said.
Karthik has made his intentions clear by stressing time and again that he wants to play the T20 World Cup in Australia in October-November and help Indie end their elusive wait for the T20 World Cup. With Hardik Pandya showcasing his class in IPL 2022, the selectors do have a problem of plenty to choose the World Cup squad from.
