Shayan Ahmad Khan
Dinesh Karthik opted out of commentary duties for the Dharamsala Test between India and England earlier in 2024 to participate in the DY Patil T20 tournament.
“I played a tournament called the DY Patil tournament and I was abysmal in that. [And] That got the fear even more, ‘What am I going to do this year?’ But luckily then, I practiced and did whatever possible – played as many practice games as possible,” Karthik said on the Sky Cricket Vodcast. He also explained how difficult it was to mix broadcasting and playing.
Karthik, 39, has now scored 226 runs at more than two runs a ball this season. He has been the shining light in an RCB team that have just won one out of seven games. Speaking of the one win, Karthik had an integral role to play in that fixture against Punjab Kings. He walked in to bat when they needed 47 runs to win in the last four overs. He scored a terrific 28 off 10 deliveries, supported by Mahipal Lomror’s cameo – 17* off 8 balls.
But that wasn’t his only impactful innings this season. In fact, he has had just one failure in six innings, which is simply outstanding in an extremely high variance role. In overs 17-20, Karthik has the fifth-highest strike rate (253.70) among the 19 batters who have scored at least 50 runs so far in the death overs in IPL 2024.
And this is not a new occurrence. In 2018, he was signed by KKR and given the captaincy. Since that time period, he is massively ahead of the average batter in the final four overs of the game. He has not done well in the powerplay, but that is over a relatively smaller sample space of 54 deliveries in seven seasons. His poor numbers in overs 7-11 have to do with the fact that he is not very fond of facing wrist spin or left arm finger spin.
Abhishek Nayar, the assistant coach of KKR, has also had a pivotal role to play in Karthik’s career. Malolan Rangarajan, RCB’s assistant head coach and scout, talked about it on a Bold Diaries episode.
“He was one of the first ones, maybe in India or maybe even in Chennai, to start hiring their own coaches, a little bit like tennis. He had already done it, he had already gone through a couple of coaches. He was at that point in his career where he needed somebody to mentor him, like a holistic person who would take care of him and fortunately he found that person in Abhishek Nayar,” Rangarajan said.
A finisher naturally has to face more pace than spin. In the same vodcast with Sky, Karthik also explained how different it is to face quick bowling from spin.
“When you don’t play fast bowling as much and when you’re doing broadcasting and all of that, you can play muscle memory for spin. You can upto 130-135 [kmph] because you’ve played it a few times. Somebody bowling 140 [kmph] and you know is in the middle of a sharp spell, now that’s where you need to have constantly played cricket for your body and mind to react at a certain pace and get ready for the ball.”
Well, the ‘broadcaster’ has not done too badly against pace himself. Among the batters who have faced at least 50 balls of pace this season, only Travis Head (215.96) scores quicker against them than Karthik’s 215.22, and marginally at that.
Since 2018, he has a very good record against fast bowling. His strike rate is slightly above par while averaging 9.8 runs more than an average batter would if they batted in the same phases of the game when it comes to facing right arm pace. It gets even better against left-arm seam, where he is +15 on average and +30 on strike rate. He is elite against right-arm finger spin, but he does not like facing spin bowling of any other kind.
“Dinesh Karthik is really making a push for the World Cup team as well and is only getting better on the field,” said Andy Flower, the RCB coach, on RCB Game Day (the franchise’s YouTube channel).
Does he actually have a great case? India’s designated finishers – Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja — are not exactly in great form, while Rinku Singh is, but has only faced 51 deliveries so far. When you consider those things, it does not sound like a terrible idea.
But with the race for the wicketkeeper’s position heating up this season, it is extremely unlikely that the selectors would want to go back to a 39-year-old with the likes of Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson also doing very well.
But regardless of whether he makes it, the evolution of the wicket-keeper who always remained in the shadow of MS Dhoni and Rishabh Pant, has been carving out his own niche in the spotlight. The man who opened for India in their last Test series win in England is now expected to finish his career by solving India’s finishing conundrum.
Stats by Varun Alvakonda
