Dinesh Karthik
With the highly-anticipated 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) just a couple of days away, Kolkata Knight Riders vice-captain Dinesh Karthik held a Q&A session on Twitter where he opened up about many things including his role in the team.
Being the vice-captain of the Kolkata outfit, the wicketkeeper-batsman said that he can now focus more on his skills along with helping skipper Eoin Morgan. In last year's IPL, Karthik had handed over the captaincy of the franchise to Morgan.
“Dinesh Karthik has informed the KKR management that with a view to focusing on his batting and contributing more to the team’s cause, he wished to hand over the captaincy to Eoin Morgan,” KKR had said in a statement.
Karthik was appointed captain of two-time IPL champions ahead of the 2018 season. Under his leadership, KKR progressed to the knockouts in 2018 and achieved a fifth-place finish in 2019.
During the Q&A session, Karthik also chose Morgan as his favourite partner in the IPL. "My favourite partner has to be @Eoin16. He never talks cricket in the middle, only random stuff...I enjoy doing that!" he wrote.
Karthik also credited Abhishek Nayar for his role in taking his career to an ‘upward spiral’. “It has been an upward spiral since I've started working with him and the preparations are now a lot more different than what used to be before,” Karthik answered to a question about Nayar’s role in his career.
Furthermore, Karthik also picked Shakib Al Hasan as KKR's most exciting recruitment for the upcoming season. "It's always great to have Shakib Al Hasan with us, he has been a very exciting recruit for us. He has played with KKR before so it's great to have him back in our team,” he wrote.
The Kolkata outfit will take on SunRisers Hyderabad their opening match of IPL 2021 on April 11 in Chennai. KKR are set to play their first three matches in Chennai, followed by two in Mumbai, four in Ahmedabad and their final five games in Bengaluru.
