Rahul Dravid and Dinesh Karthik
Dinesh Karthik was selected to play for Team India after the year 2019. He played brilliant knocks for his team RCB in the IPL season of this year and donned the role of finisher. The 36-year-old scored his maiden fifty at Rajkot against the Proteas. In the fourth match of the series between India and South Africa, he contributed to the team's victory by scoring 55 runs.
While T20 World Cup is nearing, India's head coach Rahul Dravid spoke about Karthik's role in the tournament. He said that the wicketkeeper-batsman opens up a lot of options going into the T20 World Cup. Dravid will be an integral part of the team identifying a core team of 18-20 players for the World Cup.
"It was really nice to see Karthik come off and do what he has been picked to do. That was good and it opens up a lot more options for us, going forward," Dravid said after the five-match series against South Africa ended in a 2-2 draw.
"He was picked for what he has been doing exceptionally well for the last two or three years (in IPL) and kind of indicated in the sense that it almost came together in the game at Rajkot," Dravid said after Karthik led his team to victory along with Hardik Pandya and Avesh Khan in the 4th match.
Dravid spoke about Pandya and Karthik being the last over enforcers.
"We needed that big performance in the last five overs to make a par score and he and Hardik batted beautifully.
Both of them are enforcers for us at the end," Dravid said.
The coach admitted that Karthik has made a good case for himself going into the upcoming T20 World Cup.
"I was telling guys that you have to start banging the door down and not just knocking the door down and innings like that (Rajkot fifty) means he is knocking very hard.
(Inputs from PTI)
