India wicket-keeper batsman Dinesh Karthik has turned the table upside down in the last few months. After his heroic season for Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL 2022, he made a comeback to the Indian cricket team for the shortest format of the game. Since his comeback, the talisman has played a few innings where he outpowered the opposition. One of such innings came in the first T20I against West Indies at the Brian Lara Stadium, Tarouba, Trinidad on Friday. DK played innings of the match and he was even named Man of the Match for his 41-run knock in just 19 balls with the help of four boundaries and two sixes. However, the highlight of his innings came in the 19th over.
.@DineshKarthik's knock pushed India's total to a massive 190. His batting was an absolute treat to witness!
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In the second last over of the innings, where DK was facing Jason Holder, he switched his position and became a left-hand batsman to play a cut short towards fine-leg. Holder bowled a short ball but DK improvised to guide it towards the boundary. Karthik said he was more than keen to play a role in India's campaign during the ICC T20 World Cup in Australia in October-November this year.
"When you are back in the middle order, especially at the back end of the game, you need to be very quick on your feet in terms of assessing the conditions, assessing the ball. What are the kinds of shots that you can play," said Karthik in a chat with Ravichandran Ashwin on BCCI.tv after he had performed the role of 'finisher' to perfection, making a massive difference in India reaching the imposing total after they were staring at a 160-165 total at the fall of Ravindra Jadeja's wicket.
"As you've seen when you (Ravichandran Ashwin) came in, Jadeja had just got out. That was a very critical phase of the game that would've been the difference between 165 and 190. We stitched together a very clever partnership, running hard in between and then at the back end exploding and making sure we hit those boundaries," said Karthik, who added that absorbing pressure in the death overs was as important for a 'finisher' as playing his strokes to perfection.
"But till then, there was a phase where we had to absorb pressure and which I thought we (DK and Ashwin) did well," added Karthik. Karthik also indicated how keen he was to play in the T20 World Cup, saying he would be happy if "both of us (DK and Ashwin) have a small role to play in that".
"Obviously, the ultimate goal is to win the T20 World Cup and I'm sure both of us have a small role to play in that in time," he concluded.
